


Who We Get to Be

by oceanicflights



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Other, Protective Natasha Romanov, Slow Burn, Tags will be added as story continues, i cant even begin to explain how off course it went, i didnt intend for this to be slow burn yet here we are, look this story went so far off course, natasha is a mom, wanda and peter are the same age
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 49,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24416401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceanicflights/pseuds/oceanicflights
Summary: Wanda Maximoff doesn't know what to expect after becoming an Avenger. As she trains and learns to be more comfortable in her new environment, Tony suddenly assigns her a mission - one nobody else can do, much to Natasha's dismay.Wanda is sent to high school. Specifically, she is sent to befriend and possibly recruit Peter Parker. As her mission starts, though, she begins to feel as if something is being kept from her...what are Natasha and Tony hiding from her?
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff & Natasha Romanov, Wanda Maximoff & Peter Parker, Wanda Maximoff/Peter Parker
Comments: 375
Kudos: 581





	1. Chapter 1

Following Sokovia, Wanda Maximoff hadn’t known where to go. She felt completely and utterly alone, even if she wasn’t technically. In the days after Ultron, the witch had helped the Avengers do what they could for the people of Sokovia, which included a lot of translating on her part. But when it came time for the heroes to leave, Wanda didn’t know where she was supposed to go or what to do. 

She followed the others to the quinjet, and offered a goodbye as they started boarding it. She was confused by the looks they gave...surely they weren’t still upset with her, were they? 

“Thank you…” she started, not knowing what else to say, “For helping the people here even when we were not very welcoming. I...again, I am sorry for what I did to you. Safe travels back home.” 

“Wanda,” Clint finally said, “You do realize you’re coming with us, right?” 

“I...am?” Wanda’s eyes widened for a second, “Am I in trouble? Am I...being arrested?” That wasn’t where this was going, was it? Did her actions while fighting for the otherside outweigh what she had done to help defeat Ultron? 

“Of course not,” Clint almost laughed, “I said if you walked out that door you’d be an Avenger, and you did. You’re an Avenger now, and I think you could use a place to call home. Did you really think we were just going to leave you here?” 

At this point, everyone else had already boarded the quinjet and were waiting on the archer and, apparently, her as well. Wanda, not knowing what else to say or do, absentmindedly nodded and followed Clint onto the jet. 

*** 

Arriving at the Avengers facility in New York, Wanda wasn’t sure where to go. She awkwardly stood by the jet, following the others as they made their way to an elevator. Everyone seemed exhausted and nobody offered any words to one another, so the witch stayed silent as well. After what felt like an eternity, they came to a stop and the Avengers all filed out into what looked like a common area. Each person went their own way, down a hallway and into their perspective rooms, but Wanda stood in place unsure of what to do. 

Was she supposed to find a room to go to, or was she supposed to stay out here? Was she even supposed to get off on this floor with everybody else? 

Deciding to find a place to sit down, Wanda settled on one of the couches in the room, deciding to play it safe and not start looking into closed rooms to see if one happened to be empty. She didn’t know how much time had passed when she started to nod off, yet she willed herself to stay awake. Falling asleep in an open space like this couldn’t be good, no matter who else was in the building. 

At some point, though, her own exhaustion got the better of her, and the next thing she knew she was being woken up by the sound of someone calling her name. 

“Wanda? Wanda, wake up.” a feminine voice said, “Any reason you decided this was the best place to sleep?” 

Wanda opened her eyes to see the Black Widow standing in front of her, “I...didn’t know where I was supposed to go. I thought it would be better to stay out here than go into a room I did not belong in.” 

The Widow frowned, “Nobody bothered to show you to an actual bed?” getting a head shake in response, the redhead sighed, “Okay come on, follow me.” 

Once in an empty bedroom, Natasha nodded towards a door, “That’s a bathroom if you want to get cleaned up at all. I’ll go find something for you to wear.” 

Now alone again, Wanda walked over to the bathroom and glanced inside, debating whether or not to shower or try and fall back asleep. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep in the first place, but now that she wasn’t in a common area, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea...but then again, when was the last time she had a proper shower? 

Walking over to the shower, she stared at the controls for a minute trying to figure out how to work it. There was a single, circular handle that seemed to turn in a half circle either way, so she pushed it as far as it would go to the right. Freezing cold water suddenly rained out of the shower head. Curious as to why the handle could also turn the other way, Wanda then pushed it all the way to the left. She didn’t know what she had been expecting, but hot water hadn’t been it. 

Watching the room start to quickly steam up, the teen put her hand under the running water and quickly pulled it back, shocked by exactly how hot the water had gotten. A hot shower? When was the last time she had one of those? It was before HYDRA, that much she knew for sure. In all honesty, she had almost forgotten that there was such a thing. 

In the end, the handle ended up turned only halfway to the left. It was hot, but not burning her skin when she stuck her hand under it. So, after what felt like an eternity of learning the shower mechanics, Wanda stripped down and got in. 

After getting out, Wanda found that Natasha had already brought in a change of clothes for her. It felt weird wearing the sweatpants and t-shirt, but it was more comfortable than anything else she had worn in a while. Sighing, she laid on top of the bed and closed her eyes. 

*** 

Wanda didn’t leave her room at all the next day. Every time she had managed to fall asleep, she now saw death. Some strangers, some not. One of the dreams was a familiar one - it was of the time her parents had been killed by a bomb. The worst dreams, though, were the ones where she saw Pietro. She called out his name, trying to reach out to him, to get him to move, but it was always too late. Every time she saw him die a different way: crushed to death, strangled, falling off the side of the floating city, and finally him getting shot to death. 

Eventually, she gave up trying to sleep and wept. Up until now, Wanda had tried to keep it together. Had tried to push the tears down. Now that the flood gate had opened there seemed to be no stopping it. 

Another full day almost went by before someone knocked at her (could it be considered hers?) door. She ignored it, yet the person made their way inside the room anyways. 

“I brought you something to eat,” Natasha said, sitting on the edge of the bed, “Nobody’s seen you in a few days. I wanted to make sure you knew that you aren’t being confined to this room.” 

Wanda didn’t move at first, but when the spy also made no effort to leave, she finally sat up and acknowledged the other’s presence, “Where am I supposed to go?” she asked quietly. 

“The kitchen, for starters.” was the response given as a plate of food was handed to her, “You have to eat.” 

“But what if the other’s are in there?” 

“What about them?” 

Wanda looked down, almost as if she was ashamed, “After what I did, it is hard to believe they’d want to see me at all. I know that Hawkeye says I’m an Avenger now, but it does not feel like it. I’m not sure I deserve it...especially since I worked against you.” 

“So you fight for the right side now,” Natasha responded in a soft voice, “Not all of us have perfect pasts. We can’t erase what we did, but we make up for it now. What matters is that in the end, you saw that what you were doing was wrong and you switched sides.” 

The witch looked back up at the spy, and instantly felt another spurge of guilt, “What I showed you...I am sorry. I wanted to hurt you. And now you’re being kind to me...why? Why have I not been thrown in a cell yet?” 

“Like you said, Clint made you an Avenger. Which, by the way, means I want you to start training soon.” 

“Training?” 

“Yes. I’ll be training you, starting as soon as possible. So, eat up. I’ll get you some fresh clothes and you’re getting out of this room.” 

*** 

The next few months Wanda had managed to set up a nice routine that kept her mostly distracted. It was difficult at first, but slowly she warmed up to being around the others. For the most part she kept her distance from everyone except Natasha, but she never locked herself away anymore. 

Nat trained with her everyday (mostly without using Wanda’s powers, Nat insisted it was important for her to know how to fight without them) and made sure she ate. After a few weeks, when the team discovered that Wanda was hardly even fifteen years old, they made her start doing small online classes. They had started off with basic math and science classes, which resulted in the team quickly learning that Wanda wasn’t completely uneducated. If anything, the teen proved to be somewhat advanced in the subjects, shocking them all. At the very least, she appeared to be a fast learner. 

Wanda tried to be grateful for all that was given to her and all that the team was doing for her, but she found it hard knowing that it was all funded by Stark. She tried not to hold a grudge against him, but it turned out to be a hard thing to break. She figured he had similar feelings about her after she had messed with his mind, but then why would he be letting her stay in his home? Perhaps it was the guilt of knowing his weapons had been what orphaned her and Pietro to begin with. 

Regardless, they were by no means close, nor did they ever really talk. This made it all the more confusing when Stark walked up to Wanda in the common area one morning, the biggest smile on his face. 

“So, Romanoff has been training you, right?” he asked, getting a confused nod in response, “Perfect. Just in fighting, or has she also given you some knowledge on what it means to be a spy?” 

Hearing the conversation, Natasha looked over at the two, “I’m going to need more context on why you’re asking that before you get an answer.” 

“Because I have a mission for her.” 

“No,” Natasha said instantly, “She’s not ready for missions. Send someone else.” 

Tony shook his head, “No can do. The little witch here is the only one that can do this one.” 

“And why’s that?” 

Now he turned to Wanda, who had been following along in the conversation but not intervening. The smile on Stark’s face grew a little bit. 

“Because,” he said, “Miss Maximoff is going to high school.”


	2. Chapter 2

“No.” 

“Yes.” 

“Tony,” Natasha warned, “You are not sending her to a high school. What kind of mission is this?” 

“I just need her to befriend someone,” Stark explained, “Get her to know him on a more personal level. Obviously I’ve already looked into him, but it’s not like I can just go into the school and befriend a fifteen year old kid. But I can send another fifteen year old in to do just that.” 

Nat shook her head, “Nope, gonna need to know why you’re trying to get intel on a child.” 

“FRIDAY, can you send the Parker file to Agent Romanoff?” he asked of the AI, watching as Natasha reached for her tablet and started swiping through the information given to her. Though she was good at hiding her emotions, he knew that what she saw had earned at least some interest on her part. 

“Tony,” she said after a second, “This school is in Queens. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re not in the city anymore. And you can’t just exactly enroll Wanda into this school. She would have to apply and be accepted-” 

Tony dismissed this, “It’s been worked out. The Tower is nearly fixed so you can stay there for a bit until I manage to get a place in Queens for you to stay. I would just say stay in the Tower but to keep up looks, it’s best you live in Queens. Oh yeah, by the way I’m listing you as her mother on her enrollment forms.” 

“I seriously hope you didn’t use my actual name, then. Wanda is lucky enough that her name and picture didn’t end up in the public eye, but if she’s suddenly on something associated with me-” 

“Of course not,” Stark rolled his eyes, “I mean, I listed you as Natasha Maximoff but I’m sure you’ll manage.” 

Throughout the discussion, Wanda had been sitting in silence listening in. She hadn’t really gathered what was going on, other than Stark wanted to send her to school to make friends. Whatever had been in that file had been enough to mostly convince Natasha it seemed, which added to the confusion that the teen was feeling. 

“So,” Wanda finally interrupted, reminding them of her presence in the room, “Do I get to know the details as well? Or get a say in if I want to do this or not?” 

“Oh, you’re doing it.” Stark said, earning a glare from the spy. 

“Of course you get a say,” Natasha said, “Stark has found someone with...unique abilities, it seems. I’m assuming he wants to recruit him.” 

Tony nodded, “Well, start training him at the very least. Look, you’re pretty much the only one of us that can do this, kid. Besides, it can’t hurt for you to interact with other people your age and live a semi-normal life.” 

“Stark-” Natasha was once again sending a threatening glare in his direction, but Wanda cut her off before anything else could be said. 

“I’ll do it,” she said, “Just...tell me more about it.” 

*** 

Apparently, this mission was to start as soon as possible. The same day that Stark had introduced the idea, both her and Natasha had to start packing to leave in just a few days. The night before they left for the city, Stark, Nat, and Wanda all sat together to discuss in full details what was going on. 

“So,” Tony started, “You already know that I’m asking you to learn more about Mr. Parker as a person. For now, you’ll be staying in the Tower so maybe don’t invite anybody over for sleepovers. You’ll be settled into a house closer to the school soon enough. Natasha is looking after you, so she can set rules for you as she sees fit.” 

Natasha cut in here, “And according to your files, I’m your mother. So try not to call me Nat if you can help it.” 

“Do I have a backstory?” Wanda asked, “Will I also be using a fake name?” 

“Nope. You’re still Wanda Maximoff, except you’re a refugee from Sokovia and not an Avenger in training. Nobody knows who you are, like we said before we’ve been lucky to keep your name and picture off the news. The only name change will be Nat’s last name, so it shouldn’t be too hard on you there.” Tony said, “Just remember no powers. No mentioning knowing us. If somebody tries to talk about the battle, maybe just try and change the subject.” 

“And people won’t recognize Natasha?” 

“I know how to change my appearance so people won’t recognize me. Trust me, I’ve been doing this long enough.” 

Wanda nodded, taking in what she was being told. She didn’t have to lie about where she was from, which was good, just...certain parts of her past. She could do that, right? 

“One more thing,” Natasha added, “I looked into the school Stark has enrolled you in. The kids that go to this school are pretty smart, so do expect the workload to be more difficult than what you’ve been doing online. If you need help at all…” 

“I can do it.” 

Tony smiled, “That’s exactly the attitude you need. Get a good night’s sleep, you’re leaving first thing in the morning.” 

*** 

Wanda finally started questioning her choice as they neared the Tower the next day. What did she know about going to school, or even making friends for that matter? 

Once inside the tower, Stark, who had driven them to Manhattan, took them to one of the top floors and reiterated everything he had told them the night before on the way up. 

“I know,” the teen sighed, “Don’t let anyone know that I know the Avengers. Don’t let anybody know I’m living here.” 

“Good, because if someone figures it out this entire thing could fall apart.” 

“She gets it, Tony.” Nat said, “If I have to listen to you explain it one more time I’m not helping you.” 

When they got off the elevator, Wanda was instantly shown to a bedroom. “This way I don’t catch you sleeping on the couch again,” Nat had said.

The rest of the day went by in a bit of a blur, and by the time they sat down for dinner Wanda was more than ready to go to sleep. She really just wanted to go to bed early that night, knowing she would be going to her new school for the first time tomorrow, yet Natasha insisted that they have a chat before bed. 

“So,” she started, “You’ve heard it enough that I’m acting as your mom during this. You’ve also never really had to deal with a school schedule before, so we will have some ground rules you have to follow.” 

“Alright,” Wanda responded, wanting the talk to go quickly, “What are they?” 

“You will have a curfew, though I’ll be picking you up from school for the time being so that won’t really be an issue yet. If you need or want to stay out later, you have to let me know. I would appreciate knowing where you are if not school. Stark will have a phone ready for you before we leave in the morning with my number saved in it.” 

She nodded, “I don’t think I would be staying out late anyways.” 

“You already know this, but you can’t invite people over until we’re situated in a house in Queens. Even then, please give me some sort of heads up. I’m not dying my hair for this so I have to make sure that I’m also ready.” getting another nod, the redhead continued, “For the school aspect of this, no skipping class. You will do your homework and you will study. I don’t want you failing any classes.” 

“I can do that.” 

“The last thing I’ll say for now is that you do need to expect to be woken up decently early, especially as I actually have to get you to Queens every morning. It’ll suck but soon enough you’ll be able to sleep in at least a little bit later.” 

“Does this mean I can go to bed now?” 

Nat let out a laugh, “Yes, go.” 

*** 

When Natasha had said Wanda was going to be woken up early, she wasn’t joking. Wanda wasn’t awake enough to look at the time, even as she was handed a new phone (she hadn’t needed one before, seeing as she never left the compound and didn’t really talk to anybody else). All she knew was it was still dark outside, and the sun didn’t start to rise until they were on their way to the school. Thankfully she had managed to wake herself up to be aware when she and Natasha, who was now wearing a blonde wig and had managed to make herself look somewhat different with the help of makeup, were walking inside. 

A smiling man greeted them as they walked into the office, “You must be Miss Maximoff. I’m Mr. Morita, the principal here. I’ll be showing you and your mother around Midtown and then I’ll take you to your first class of the day.” he said, handing her a class schedule, “If you ever need any help finding a classroom, just ask any teacher and they’ll send you in the right direction.” 

Wanda simply nodded in response, now feeling increasingly nervous. The reality of the situation was finally hitting her: she was attending an American school. She did her best to pay attention during the tour, hoping to not get lost too much, but her nerves caused her to occasionally zone out during it. 

When Morita said goodbye to Natasha, Wanda thought she might hyperventilate. She was barely aware what was happening as he then led her to a classroom and inside. 

“Students, please welcome your new classmate, Wanda Maximoff,” he had said with a smile as every head in the room turned to look at her, “Let’s do our best to welcome her to Midtown Tech.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter did go pretty quickly, but now Wanda is at school! We will meet Peter in the next chapter!  
> Feel free to reach out to me on twitter @oceanicflights if ya want


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the support so far!

Peter Parker was, so far, having a pretty good day. He hadn’t missed his train that morning meaning he didn’t have to quickly find some other way to get to school on time, Flash had left him alone, and he knew that since May would be working until later in the evening he would have plenty of time to go out patrolling later without having to come up with an excuse as to where he was. Sure, maybe he had a math quiz later, but he was feeling confident. 

“Okay class,” Mr. Harrington said, attempting to get the room's attention, “Big announcement today!” This was what finally got all the students to stop their conversations and look to the front of the classroom. 

“Is it another field trip?” Betty asked, “Where is it this time?” 

Harrington smiled, “Not a trip! We actually have a new student transferring to the school today, and she’ll be in this class with you.” 

“How is that a big announcement?” Flash retorted, “It doesn’t look like we have anybody new in here.” 

“She’s currently with Principal Morita. The reason we’re talking about it is because your new peer has just moved here from Sokovia,” the murmuring started up again instantly, “Now, I know we’ve all heard about the events in Sokovia not too long ago. I want to stress to you all that the topic of what happened might not be the best to bring up to her, at least without her first initiating it. None of you know her situation or what she might have experienced or who she may have lost, and it could still be a fresh wound to her. The school wants to make sure that we are all respectful. Are there any questions?” 

Some students just kept whispering to each other, while a few hands actually went up. 

“Does she speak English?” Flash asked without being called upon, “How good can the schools eve-”

“Those questions will also not be tolerated,” Harrington reprimanded, cutting him off before he could continue, “It is rude and against what we stand for here.” 

Peter was curious about the new student, but not as much as some of the others it seemed. Apparently every girl in the class was already trying to find out ways to befriend the new girl, whose name they didn’t even know yet. He figured there was no reason to be too excited about it - Midtown had foreign exchange students before, and they without fail always ended up hanging out with the so called ‘popular’ kids. Maybe this wasn’t exactly the same situation, per se, but he had a feeling it would have the same outcome. 

“Dude, I wonder if she met the Avengers,” Ned whispered over to him, “How cool would that be? If she had been saved by one?” 

“Guess we’ll never know,” Peter said back as the door opened and Morita walked in with a brunette girl.

“Students, let's welcome your new classmate, Wanda Maximoff,” Morita had continued talking, but Peter didn’t register any of what he was saying. Instead, he was focused on the new girl...Morita had said her name was Wanda? She looked nervous, maybe even borderline scared. Maybe he should stop staring...wait, the entire class was staring at her now. Okay, maybe she had a reason to be a little scared. Peter tore his gaze away from her and looked down at his desk. For a second, he hated that he really had no chance at being her friend...she was really pretty. Not that she’d ever go out with him...

“Welcome to Midtown, Wanda,” Mr. Harrington greeted, “Pick any empty seat and we’ll get started with today’s lesson.” Wanda hesitated, but went to go sit near the back of the classroom, a few seats down from Peter.

“No, sit over here!” Flash had practically yelled at her, obviously startling the girl. Leave it to Flash to pretty much insult someone before even meeting them, then try to befriend them two minutes later. 

Wanda looked over at Flash, looking as if she was considering sitting over there, and then sat down at the seat she had originally gone too. Flash looked as if he had been punched in the face, not believing that he had been ignored. Peter had to hold back a laugh as he looked over at the new girl to get one more look at her. When he realized she looked back at him, he offered a small smile.

_‘Well, this is awkward, way to go Parker…’_ he thought before Wanda gave him a smile in return, _‘Wait...did she just smile at me? AND ignore Flash? Am I dreaming?’_

Hearing Ned failing at holding back laughter on the other side of him, Peter turned to look at his best friend. 

“She seems cool,” Ned whispered yet again, “That was pretty funny. Did you see the look on Flash’s face?” 

By the time lunch came around, Flash was still upset with Wanda for no conceivable reason. After his one failed attempt at getting her to sit with his group and her refusing, he had once again started back with insulting her. Now it seemed he was making sure she heard what he had to say, though. 

Wanda was sitting alone at the end of one of the long tables (it just so happened Peter and Ned had sat at the other end of the table, and not because she was there...nope) not eating. Ever since that morning, nobody had really made an effort to talk with her, which was a bit surprising. 

“Wanda, was it?” Flash asked, walking up to her and ignoring the two at the other end of the table. The girl in question looked up at him and opened her mouth to respond, which would have been the first time any of them had heard her speak, until she was cut off. “Can you even understand what I’m saying? How’d you manage to lie your way into this school, or is Midtown accepting charity cases now?” 

“I-” Wanda finally started to speak, but got cut off yet again by Flash continuing to lash out at her. 

“Oh, so you can talk? You know, I bet you’re only here because your family didn’t want you around-” This obviously struck something within Wanda, because in almost an instant at the mention of her family, her eyes welled with tears and she covered her mouth with her hand. If Peter didn’t know any better, he’d say it almost looked like she was shaking, almost like she was trying to restrain herself from slapping the other. 

“You know nothing about my family or me,” Wanda let out a choked sob, finally getting a full sentence in. 

“Oh really? Let me guess-” Flash started, but now he was the one cut off, though by Peter. 

“Leave her alone, Flash,” Peter said without first thinking, “She obviously doesn’t want to talk to you.” 

“Stay out of it, Parker.” at this, Wanda’s head snapped up and she stared at Peter. Tears were still streaming down her face, so Peter decided to continue arguing with Flash so she could at least get away if she wanted. Ned looked like he might pass out.

“You can’t just assume you know everything or anything about her. And it appears she has no interest in getting to know you.” 

Peter briefly regretted ever saying anything, seeing Flash’s anger switch to be directed at him. If Flash wanted to fight, Peter wasn’t really going to be able to defend himself...he could easily take the bully down thanks to Spider-Man, but nobody needed to know that. 

If there was ever a time to be literally saved by the bell, this was it. Hearing the ring that indicated everyone had five minutes to get to their next class, Flash turned, “You’re lucky I can’t be late to chem again, Parker.” he said before marching off. 

Wanda still sat at the table, wiping away tears. “Thank you,” she had whispered as Peter got his things together to go to class. It was so quiet he almost hadn’t heard her, “I...he had no right to say that about my family.” 

“He didn’t,” Peter agreed, “I know what that’s like. Hey, what’s your next class?” 

“English,” she said, looking down at the paper schedule she had carried around all day, “I guess I should go find it…” 

“That’s my class too, come on I’ll show you where it is.” he couldn’t help but smile at the thought that he was the first person she chose to have a conversation with. Maybe this meant they could be friends after all. 

“Oh, thank you…” she said as she got up, “I know you already know this, but I’m Wanda, by the way…your name is Parker?” 

“Peter,” he let out a laugh, “Peter Parker. It’s nice to meet you, Wanda.” she smiled at him for the second time that day. 

While walking to class, Peter’s phone lit up with a text from Ned. 

_‘Dude, I can’t believe you just left me for a girl. I never thought this day would come’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I didn't attend a "traditional American high school", but one that was like Midtown (from what I've gathered) in a way. I apologize if I get anything wrong on the HS end of things because of that - not only did I not attend a normal HS, I've also been graduated for a few years now, lol. 
> 
> As always, let me know what you think! I love reading comments and always try to reply/answer questions! Feel free to also reach out to me on twitter @oceanicflights !


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter partly overlaps with the last one, but from Wanda's perspective.

Wanda’s first day at school went okay for the most part. In her first class, she had wanted to sit in the back so she wouldn’t feel like everyone was staring at her, but someone had called for her to sit next to him instead. 

She considered it for a second before sitting down where she originally had planned. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to sit next to whoever that was, but she really didn’t want to be somewhere that let people easily stare at her without her noticing. 

Instantly, Wanda felt someone’s eyes on her. Looking over, she saw another boy looking at her, but instead of trying to talk to her he just smiled. Not knowing what else to do, she offered a smile in return. 

Her second class went a lot like her first. She again had to be introduced, as apparently every single period she would have a different collection of peers. Some of the faces in this class she recognized from the first, but instead of trying to talk to anyone she again sat near the back of the class. 

Lunch was in the middle of the day, after two classes and before the other two she had. Wanda sat by herself at a table, still too nervous to talk with anyone. Nobody had really tried to talk with her either, aside from a few girls in between classes. Two people sat at the other end of the table - both she recognized from her first period class, one being the boy who had smiled at her. 

Still keeping to herself, she pulled out her phone to text Natasha, wondering if she could get a picture of the person she was sent here to befriend in the first place. It wasn’t like she could just ask around to figure out who he was...right? Or was that what she was supposed to do? 

Before she could send the message, the kid who had asked her to sit with him in her first class walked up and immediately started insulting her past education, or lack thereof. Wanda wasn’t sure what to say to his comments, but he didn’t really give her the chance to say anything anyways. 

“I-” she was going to say ‘did not lie my way into this school’, but the kid cut her off before she could get two words out. 

“Oh, so you can talk? You know, I bet you’re only here because your family didn’t want you around-”

At the mention of her family, Wanda felt tears gather in her eyes. What gave him the right to say something like that? Her emotions were a mix between sad and furious, and she was trying to restrain herself from letting any of her powers show. It took a lot of control to make sure that no red magic found its way out of her - Natasha would be proud she had managed to keep it all in. 

“You know nothing about my family or me,” Wanda said, hating how she choked on her words. Okay, maybe Natasha wouldn’t be so proud of that. 

When the bully spoke again, Wanda wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold her anger back. She was going to blow her cover on day one, and then everyone would know who she was. 

“Leave her alone, Flash,” one of the boys at the other end of the table had said. The two argued a bit more before the bell signaling the end of lunch rang. As the bully, Flash, walked away Wanda noticed she was still crying. 

She began wiping away her tears as she noticed the other boy - had he been called Parker? - stood up. “Thank you,” she whispered. After a brief conversation, he offered to walk her to her next class as he was also in it. 

“Your name is Parker?” she asked as they began walking to English class. 

“Peter,” he had let out a laugh, “Peter Parker. It’s nice to meet you, Wanda.” Wanda smiled at him for the second time that day. Maybe it was weird, but it felt like the right thing to do. Well, that and this meant that she had found her target made her happy. Was target the right word to describe him? There really wasn’t a word for ‘person she was supposed to befriend’. At least their friendship seemed to be happening naturally, in a way. All she had to do now was not screw it up and learn more about him. 

So far, she had gathered that he seemed to be a very kind person and had come to her aid when Flash had been mean to her. How much intel did Stark need, anyways? It slowly started to dawn on her that she might actually not know that much of what she was doing. Since she had met him so quickly, how long would she even be in this school? 

Her third and fourth period classes went by decently quickly; Peter hadn’t been in her last class of the day, but his friend Ned had been. Peter had introduced them in English (she had recognized him as the other person sitting with Peter at lunch), and apparently this automatically made them somewhat friends as well. 

After school, she sat outside to wait for Natasha. For the first time since lunch she took her phone out, seeing she actually had a few missed messages from the Russian. 

_‘I’ll be picking you up in the same car we drove this morning, do you remember what it looks like? And yes, I’ll be blonde.’_ it read. 

What kind of car had they taken that morning? She wasn’t sure...she didn’t know much about cars. It was a basic looking car, nothing fancy as they were trying to fit in. Was it silver…? 

Focusing on trying to remember what they had driven to Queens that morning, Wanda didn’t notice that Natasha was waiting in the carpool line. It took until her phone went off with another text that she remembered she had to actively be looking for her. 

_‘Wanda, you might want to actually look at the cars in the carpool line. Don’t make me sit here forever’_

Quickly going to the car Natasha was sitting in, Wanda apologized. “I’m sorry, I was trying to remember what you drove this morning.”

“It’s fine,” Nat reassured, “So, how was your first day? Make any friends?”

“I met Peter.” 

“Oh?” 

“Yeah. First impression...he’s kind. Someone was being an ass to me and he stepped in to defend me. He’s also in two of my classes.”

“No cussing. Someone was being mean to you?” Natasha raised an eyebrow, looking over at her briefly. She was really going to take this role as mother seriously, wasn’t she? 

Wanda sighed, “I didn’t sit next to him in class and I guess it upset him. He made comments about me lying to get into the school and then my family…” 

Nat frowned, “Your family?” 

The teen nodded, “Yes. I didn’t say anything, though. I...I guess I’m not supposed to say I’m an orphan, am I?” 

“No, seeing as I’m your mother. But…I don’t expect you to say you were an only child. I know it’s a lot to ask of you to call me mom around others, and it wouldn’t be right to also not acknowledge your brother.” 

For the second time that day, Wanda had tears gathering in her eyes as her family was brought up, “Thank you...I don’t want to lie about him.” 

Natasha took one hand off the wheel and grasped one of Wanda’s, “You should know this by now, but if you ever want to talk about anything, please come to me. I’ll be here whenever you need me.” 

“Thank you…I uh...I also almost used my powers on him. But I didn’t,” the witch quickly added, “I was really upset but I managed to keep them under control. That’s good, right?” 

“It is,” Nat nodded, “You’ve come a long way with learning to control them.” 

All she got in response was a slight nod, and the rest of the drive back to the Tower was silent as Wanda let her tears dry up. Nat hated that on her very first day at school, someone had already managed to upset her like that. Day one and Wanda was already having to suppress using her powers on someone. 

When the two made it to their current home, Wanda went straight to her bedroom. Nat had decided to let her have a bit of time to herself knowing she probably had a long day, but when two hours had passed she went to check on the teen. After knocking and getting no response, she tried the door to find it unlocked. 

She couldn’t help but let out a laugh. Wanda had apparently come home and without even bothering to change clothes, collapsed onto her bed and fell asleep. 

“Wanda,” Nat carefully shook her awake, getting a groan in response, “Come on, let’s go cook dinner. You also have to do any homework you have.” 

“Don’t have any,” Wanda mumbled, turning her back to Nat wanting to go back to sleep, “Just stuff for you to sign.” 

“Then I’m going to need you to give that to me. And you still need to eat.” 

Now Wanda sat up, “But I had to wake up early...and I have to again tomorrow.” she complained, “Shouldn’t I be going to bed early?” 

Natasha laughed, “Not this early. You’ll wake up even earlier then you need to and then you’ll be falling asleep at school.” 

“Fine,” the teen grumbled as she got out of bed, “...are you going to be cooking?” when she got a nod in response a smile found its way on her face, “Can I help?” 

“Of course,” Nat smiled back, “But first let me sign those papers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! I love to know what my readers are thinking about the story!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has shown this story support so far!! It means the world to me.

Going back to school for the second day, Wanda was worried about having to deal with Flash again. Since he was in her first period class, she couldn’t think of a way to avoid him - especially if he tried to confront her during lunch again. 

She took the same seat she had the day before, and was somewhat surprised that Flash hadn’t even so much as looked in her direction. Peter had given her a small smile as he took his seat, but neither said anything. 

Wanda sat alone at lunch again, not seeing Peter or his friend Ned anywhere. During English, only small “hey’s” were said between any of them. By the time Wanda had thought to try and start even basic small talk, the teacher had gotten the class’s attention to start the lesson. 

The rest of her first week of school went similarly to that day. Flash never really attempted to talk to her (though she did see multiple confrontations between him and Peter), she would sit alone at lunch and very few words were passed between her and Peter between classes. 

She was beginning to wonder if she was doing somewhat wrong. Why was nobody talking to her? Was she missing something? 

That Thursday, her fourth day of school, Natasha had picked her up as she had every day. Today though, Wanda had a different answer for the question Nat never failed to ask after school. 

“So, how was your day?” Natasha asked, as was apparently the normal thing for a parent to do. 

“I...I think it was awful,” Wanda said, instead of answering ‘fine’ as she had on Tuesday and Wednesday, “Nobody talks to me. Peter and Ned will say hello but that’s it. I was sent here to become friends with them but for some reason I can’t seem to do that. I’m already messing it all up.”

“Why do you think you’re messing it up?” 

“Because we’re not talking. Friends talk to each other, don’t they? I’m not learning anything about him!” 

“Have you tried talking to him at all? Outside of class?” 

The witch shook her head, “I only ever see him in class. He was there at lunch on Monday, but not since. He also seems to leave school immediately after the last class.” 

“You’ll find time to talk to him,” Nat reassured, “Making friends won’t always happen instantly. You just have to try and find a time to talk, but you’re not failing. Nobody expected you two to be best friends in a week.” 

“Yeah, okay…” Wanda sighed, “If you say so.” 

*** 

Friday started off similarly, but took a quick turn when Mr. Harrington announced a project at the end of first period. 

“Okay class,” he said as he began handing out papers, “This project will be due two weeks from today. You can work alone or with one other person. Please read over the directions and come to class on Monday with any questions you may have.” 

Wanda glanced at the sheet, silently dreading the assignment. Reading over it, she hardly understood what it was asking of her, and she knew it was unlikely anybody would ask to work with her. For the last few minutes of class, most everyone had paired up with someone (hardly anybody chose to work alone), and Wanda was still trying to grasp the full picture of the assignment. 

“Wanda?” she snapped her head up hearing her name, seeing Peter looking over at her, “Do you want to work together on it?” he asked. 

“Are you not going to work with Ned?” she responded, slightly confused. 

“Nah,” Ned chimed in, looking behind him, “Hey, MJ, wanna be partners?” the girl in question simply shrugged and gave a small nod. 

“Oh…” Wanda blinked, “Okay...sure.”

“Do you want to meet up after school or something and start talking about it? Couldn’t hurt to get a head start, right?” 

“I have to ask N...my mother,” she quickly corrected herself, pausing for a second at how weird it felt to say that, “But I can let you know?” 

“Sounds good!” Peter smiled at her yet again as the ball rang, signaling the end of class. As she walked to her next class, she sent off a quick text to Natasha. 

_‘i have a project to work on with peter. Is it okay if I stay after school to get started on it?’_

Natasha responded almost instantly, _‘Yes - let me know where you’ll be. Remember I still have to be the one who brings you home, you can’t let anybody else drop you off at the tower.’_

Wanda wasn’t expecting to see Peter again until after lunch, seeing as he hadn’t been in the cafeteria since Monday. Needless to say, she was surprised when he sat across from her. 

“Is it cool if we sit here?” Peter asked, seeing how Wanda responded when he and Ned went to sit with her, “Sorry I haven’t really been here this week, we’ve had extra AcaDec practices this week.” 

“Oh, it’s alright…” she responded, not bothering to ask what AcaDec even was.

“Did your mom give you the okay to hang out after school?” 

“Yes, she just wants to know where I’ll be.” 

For some reason, this made Peter laugh, “Yeah my aunt can be the same way. I bet she’s been really overprotective since you moved here...if she wants we can just go to your place to talk about the project?” he offered. 

“Oh uh,” she briefly panicked, having to find a reason he couldn’t come over, “We aren’t...fully moved in yet. I don’t think she would like me having any people over until we have a more permanent place.” seeing his face fall a bit, Wanda realized what she had halfway implied. 

“You do have a place to stay...right?” Ned asked, though it was so quiet she had almost missed it. 

“Of course!” Wanda was quick to respond, hoping she wasn’t somehow digging herself a deeper hole, “We just...want to find a place that is only ours. A house that can be a real home for us.” she forced a smile as she thought about the words she was saying. Sure, the Avengers had allowed her to move in and had provided for her, but it had never felt like a true home to her. Really, she had never had to think about it. 

Was the tower really her home now? No, it was just a place where she was staying until Stark found a house for her and Natasha. But that wouldn’t really be her home either, would it? Could it be home without her brother there? Living in a place provided to her by the man she had blamed for her parents death for so long? 

“I’m sure May won’t mind you coming over for a bit,” Peter said, changing the subject slightly and breaking her away from her thoughts, “Just meet me at the front of the building after school.” 

*** 

After school Wanda stood outside of the building and waited for Peter, wondering after a few minutes if he had forgotten they were supposed to be meeting. 

“Sorry!” she heard him exclaim as he ran up to her, “I got sidetracked. Anyways, we should get going. Gotta catch a train to get to my apartment.” 

As the two teens started walking, Wanda tried to think of a way to start a conversation. For some reason, it seemed she now lacked all social skills. 

“So, how was your first week at Midtown?” Peter asked, being the first one to talk. 

“It was okay, I think.” 

“What classes do you have?” The rest of the trip to Peter’s home consisted of him trying to give her advice for the different teachers she had, as well as random things about the school in general. He explained what AcaDec was, and how they had a big competition coming up soon so the team had to meet during lunch for most of the past week. 

As they walked up the stairs of his apartment, she wondered about his family. Neither Stark nor Natasha had really told her anything about Peter, other than that he was a vigilante that could possibly be recruited. The more this mission went on, Wanda realized that she hadn’t really been given much information at all, she had just been told what not to do. 

“May isn’t home yet,” Peter said as they stepped inside his apartment, “I think she’ll be here in like an hour or two so she should be good to take you home later if you need.” 

“My mom said she would come get me. Who is May?” it hadn’t been the first time she had heard him mention her. Surely he didn’t call his mother by her first name, did he? 

“Oh, she’s my aunt.” he explained, scratching the back of his neck as he did so, “I’ve lived with her since I was four. Most everyone at school knows I’m an orphan, and it’s not like it comes up in conversation...sorry, maybe I should’ve said that before.”

Wanda shook her head, “No, you don’t have to explain.” she could feel sadness start to rise in her again, and she willed herself not to cry, “I...know what it’s like. I’ve lost family too.” 

“Your dad, right?” as soon as the words left his mouth, Peter’s eyes went wide, “Sorry, that sounded bad. I just only hear you talk about your mom.” 

“Yes, he died when I was ten.” her voice dropped to a whisper, “I also lost my brother when…what happened with the Avengers in Sokovia…the city...” how could she explain this without saying he had died protecting Hawkeye? 

Peter nodded, letting Wanda know he understood what she was trying to say even if he didn’t know the full truth, “Were you close?” 

“We were twins.” Wanda hadn’t really talked about Pietro’s death with anyone other than Natasha and on one occasion, Clint. She wasn’t sure she was ready to talk about it with someone she really didn’t know, and she wasn’t sure why she had said it to begin with. 

The two teens sat in silence for a few minutes, Wanda not wanting to cry and Peter not knowing what to say. 

“So…” it was Wanda who finally broke the silence, pushing her feelings down, “Should we start on the project?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in case the school schedule is confusing they have 4 classes a day (roughly 1.5 hours long if I follow my own experience) and lunch falls after the first two and before the second two. Wanda and Peter are in first and third period together. I'll answer any questions about it if it gets confusing, lol. 
> 
> Let me know what you think! As always, feel free to reach out on twitter @oceanicflights if ya want, or even on discord (just let me know if you want to talk to me there)! I'm always down to talk Marvel.


	6. Chapter 6

As it turns out, the project itself wasn’t that difficult. In fact, once Peter had been able to better explain it to Wanda they were very quickly able to get most the information they would need for it together. They decided they could meet after school again another day the next week to put it all together. 

The two were still at his apartment, having moved on from schoolwork and were now passing the time by playing with different legos and watching YouTube videos. It hadn’t been long after the two teens had gotten to the apartment that Peter’s aunt had gotten home as well; she had looked into Peter’s room to say hello to Wanda, but hadn’t spoken to them since. 

“So,” Peter asked as they sat on his bedroom floor absentmindedly fidgeting with legos, “What does your mom do?” 

“Hm?” Wanda asked, fitting two pieces together. She had texted Natasha Peter’s address over an hour ago, though she figured the woman probably already knew it. Even without having Starks file on the kid, how hard would it have been for a former spy to find out his address? Probably not very. 

“For work?” 

“Oh,” she paused, thinking for a second. She hadn’t been told what to say if this came up, “She is mostly focused on me right now.” 

“Is Stark Industries funding you guys for now?” The question caught Wanda off guard. She hadn’t ever mentioned Stark’s name, how could he have figured it out? Before she could say anything in response, Peter elaborated on his question, “The relief fund thing they made for Sokovia? I dunno what exactly it includes but I was curious as to if he was also helping the people that got displaced.” 

Wanda shrugged, “I...cannot say. My mom does not discuss that with me.” well, it was as good an excuse as any. 

“Can I ask one more question? You don’t have to answer…” 

“It’s okay, you can ask. Maybe you’ll get an answer.” she tried to joke, but wasn’t sure it came across as such. 

Peter seemed somewhat hesitant, “I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable by bringing it up...but after Sokovia there were rumors about something that happened there.” this piqued Wanda’s interest, “I mean, people stopped talking about it not long after but this past week I’ve heard people wondering if maybe you’d know something about it since you were there…” 

“What is it?” 

“There were rumors that someone was using some kind of...red magic, I guess? Apparently some of the Sokovians were saying they saw robots or whatever they were being destroyed in...clouds of red?” Peter shook his head, “That probably doesn’t even make sense. I’m sure if there was actually someone that could do that, the Avengers probably would’ve said something about it by now.” 

“I’m...not sure,” she lied, “I don’t believe I saw anything like that.” Didn’t Stark say that she had stayed out of the media? That nobody knew about her? Well, maybe that was still the case if it was all just rumors...she should’ve known that it wasn’t logical to think that nobody saw her magic during the entirety of that day. 

“Yeah, I mean it’s probably just rumors.” 

“Can I ask you something weird, too?” Wanda asked before she could think better of it. 

“Go for it.” 

“Since I’ve been here I heard some people talking about a person who stops criminals,” she started, not sure how to word her question, “He uses webs like a spider. Have you heard about this?” 

She noticed Peter tense up slightly but he quickly relaxed again, “Spider-Man? He’s kinda well known in Queens, like our own superhero.” he answered after a second of thinking, “Have you seen him at all?” 

“No, I only overheard something about him.” Okay, so he was going to keep his identity a secret, just as she was. That was to be expected.

“You hungry? I dunno when your mom’s gonna be here but we could find a snack.” he changed the subject. 

She nodded, “Sure.” glancing at her phone, Wanda saw that Natasha hadn’t even texted her. It had been over an hour since she had told her ‘mom’ that she could be picked up at any time and sent the address, to which she had only gotten an ‘okay’ in response. How late was Natasha planning on picking her up? 

Stepping outside of the bedroom, Wanda froze at the sight she saw in the living room, “Mom,” she said when she spotted a blonde Natasha sitting on the couch talking with Peter’s aunt, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were here already.”

Natasha looked back at her and smiled, “It’s alright, I thought you might like to spend a bit more time with someone your own age rather than coming home right away. Besides, I’ve enjoyed speaking with May.” This was the first time Wanda had heard Nat use any sort of accent, no matter how subtle it was, and it caught her off guard. It made sense, seeing as she was also supposed to be from Sokovia during this, but it was still weird. 

May also smiled, “Would you two like to join me and Peter for dinner? I was thinking we could go get Thai.”

***

Natasha and Wanda ended up at the Thai restaurant with the two Parkers.Wanda hadn’t really expected Natasha to accept the offer from May, but after being reassured they wouldn’t be intruding, the former spy had agreed. The two adults held most of the conversations that happened while they were out, both Wanda and Peter feeling somewhat awkward. How could adults manage to talk about such bland topics for such a long period of time? It seemed they had covered every single thing that could fall under “small talk”. 

“Would it be alright if me and Wanda walked around the block while you guys talk?” Peter asked after the two teens had long been finished eating. 

May looked over at Nat, not wanting to give confirmation unless it was okay with her. After all, she couldn’t speak for someone else's child. When Natasha nodded her approval, she gave her’s as well. 

“Okay, but don’t go too far. And make sure your phone is accessible.” she said. Wanda was going to protest essentially being told she was going on a walk, as she had never said that was what she wanted to do, but decided against it and followed Peter. 

“Sorry about that,” Peter apologized once they were outside, “I don’t think May talks to a lot of people aside from me and her coworkers. I think she’s excited.” 

“It’s alright. I honestly was not expecting my mom to talk so much,” Wanda responded with a laugh. It really was amusing to see Natasha act so...animated? Perhaps she was trying to more establish the role she was playing, deciding that ‘Natasha Maximoff’ would be someone who befriended their child’s friends' parents. But befriending May...that had never been part of the plan, had it? What was she playing at? 

“Do you think it’d be alright if I got your number?” Peter blurted out, a blush spreading across his face, “You know...for school and stuff…” 

His question caught Wanda off guard. She hadn’t texted anyone aside from Natasha...well, she hasn’t been told she couldn’t give her number out, so there was no reason not to...right?

“Sure,” she answered, pulling up a new text conversation and handing her phone to Peter, “I haven’t learned my number yet, so you can go ahead and text yourself from my phone? That way we can both save the information…” Wanda rambled, trying not to cringe when she realized she was probably over explaining. She hadn’t ever been this socially awkward when talking to other teens in Sokovia, so what was it about Peter that made her an awkward mess? Or was it simply having to exclusively use English now? She wasn’t sure. 

Peter typed something into her phone and handed it back to her, “Feel free to text me whenever, if you ever need help with anything.”

“Thank you,” Wanda smiled at him. This really was starting to feel less like a mission, so she was trying to remind herself that’s all this was. She was fighting a blush from cropping up on her face...why was that? All that had happened was Peter had once again smiled. 

_’Today has been odd,’_ she thought, _’I wonder what all this is really about.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If formatting or grammar is off in this chapter, especially near the end, I apologize. My computer isn’t working so it was finished and published on mobile. 
> 
> Also, I know this wasn’t in the original tags and I’m not going to attempt to update the tags on mobile, but this story will officially be featuring Wanda/Peter. I went back and forth on that a lot but it’s been decided and tags will be changed soon to reflect that. 
> 
> Regardless, let me know what you think!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news: I have a laptop again. More good news, I got excited about it and it means I've written a lot more for this story.

Another 45 minutes passed before Natasha and Wanda were back in Natasha’s car heading to the tower. Wanda and Peters walk had only lasted roughly ten minutes, so the two teens had to again sit and listen to the adults go on about random topics for what felt like forever. 

“You and May get along,” Wanda said once she was alone with her ‘mother’. 

“I can’t never show my face,” Nat answered the question before Wanda could even ask why she had decided to befriend the boy's aunt, “It can raise questions.”

“Oh.” she paused before remembering an earlier conversation, “Peter asked me about...me? Not that he knew it was me, but about the red magic people saw in Sokovia. I thought nobody knew about who I was.”

“Nobody does. Nobody knows that Wanda Maximoff is the so-called Scarlet Witch, and we’re making sure nobody figures it out. Don’t out yourself.”

Wanda raised an eyebrow, “Scarlet Witch?”

“That’s what people have deemed you.” there was a hint of amusement in Nat’s voice, “Don’t even try to change it, it’s gonna stick.” 

***

Wanda felt like she hadn’t really had a break all day, so getting to shower and collapse in bed that night felt amazing. She had passed out relatively quickly, though she only slept a couple hours before being woken up by a nightmare. 

Nightmares were slowly becoming less common, especially ones that would cause her to wake up in tears. Though this hadn’t been one that did cause her to wake up crying, Wanda knew that it was probably going to be a bit before she was going to be able to fall back asleep. She wandered out to the kitchen that they had been using and made hot chocolate, sitting at the kitchen counter.

“She’d done fine adjusting so far,” she heard Natasha say from the living room. Wanda couldn’t help but eavesdrop on the side of the conversation she could hear. Nat was obviously talking to someone about her, but who was on the other end of the phone? 

“Her first week of school just finished and she’s already been over to his home,” Nat said, “I’m sure it won’t be long before they’re at least decent friends.”

Wanda wanted to get closer to the door to see if there was any chance she could hear snippets of the other end of the conversation, but didn’t want to risk the former spy finding out she was there. Or did Natasha know she was there? Did she want the teen to hear this? 

“No, she hasn’t seen the house yet, I’m going to take her tomorrow,” the one-sided conversation continued, “I’m fine with living there. But like I said, Parker wasn’t that hard for her to befriend. When…” Nat paused. Wanda heard her get up and move to her bedroom, out of earshot for the teen. Whatever she was about to say, apparently Wanda wasn’t supposed to hear. 

Was Stark on the other end of the line? They already had a house set up? What was Natasha hiding from her...did she know she was listening? It took a minute, but Wanda decided to test her luck listening through the bedroom door. She wouldn’t try to look in Natashas mind, she had decided right after moving into the compound that she would never use her powers like that again. 

Right as she leaned against Nat’s door, though, it opened. 

“What’re you doing up?” Natasha asked with a frown, “Are you okay?”

“Nightmare,” Wanda answered honestly. At least that could explain why she was outside her bedroom; it made sense to seek comfort after a nightmare, even if that’s not actually what she had been doing. 

“Is that why you were trying to eavesdrop?” 

“I...uh…” 

Nat now gave a small grin, “It’s okay, I knew you could hear me. Which means I know that you’re aware you’re going to be seeing the new house tomorrow and we’re going to start settling in. So I suggest you try and get some rest.” 

“We’re moving in already?” They had just gotten to the tower...surely they hadn’t made a huge fuss about her keeping that a secret when they were only staying a week? 

“The house had to be furnished before we could move in, that’s the main reason we stayed here to begin with. All you have to do is move the things you brought here from the compound there.” 

“I thought we’d be here longer. That’s what you made it sound like.” 

“Best way to make sure you actually started settling into living in the city and going to school. Trust me, you’ll like actually being closer to your school a lot better. No more crazy early mornings...well, not to the same extent it was this past week.” 

Wanda nodded in response, “...Why did Stark call you so late? That’s who it was, right?” 

“If that was for you to know you would’ve been present for the conversation,” she said curtly, “Now go back to bed.” 

“But-” 

“Bed. No arguing.” 

The teen wanted to argue back, try to get answers out of her ‘mother’. She had mentioned how quickly her and Peter had managed to get along, did that mean they would be able to go back to the compound soon? But then why would they still be moving into a house in Queens? Deciding it wasn’t worth it that early in the morning (late at night?), Wanda begrudgingly went back to her room and laid back down. 

By the time the sun rose, Wanda wondered how long she would be able to stay in bed until she was woken up. But while she almost wanted to test the limits, she also didn’t want to give Nat any reason to be irritated with her; maybe she could get some answers to questions that have been popping up the past week. It was worth a shot, wasn’t it? 

So she made sure to get up at a decent hour and get ready for the day, not at all surprised to see that Natasha was already in the main living area by the time she made her way there. It wasn’t long before the teen was ushered back up to her room to pack up her clothes (which she thankfully still hadn’t managed to fully unpack in the first place) and then out to the car they had been using all week. Soon enough the two were on their way to Queens. 

“So,” Wanda said, “I guess we are moving in today?” 

“We don’t have to,” Nat answered, “But then packing up the car was a waste of time.” 

The witch hesitated, trying to decide how to ask her next question without it sounding rude in any way, “How long will we be staying in this house?” she settled on, “If all I was supposed to do was see if Peter was a good person, someone who could possibly be recruited, I do not think we’ll need to be here long.” 

“We’ll decide when it’s time for you to go back to the compound,” was the vague answer given. Somehow, Wanda had a feeling that the ‘we’ Natasha had mentioned didn’t actually include her. 

*** 

The house was a decent size, which Wanda was both surprised at but also not at all shocked that Stark had found a nice place for them to stay. It was definitely more than what just two people would need, but it fit nicely into a “small family home” category. Wanda debated actually unpacking all her clothes this time, seeing as she didn’t have an answer as to how long they’d be living there. In the end, she decided to just go ahead and put everything away so she didn’t have to go digging for clothes every morning. 

By late afternoon, she was beyond bored. It was the first real weekend she was spending away from the compound - no training, no awkwardly sitting in common areas while the rest of the team talked. It was just her, laying across the bed in her new room. Taking out her phone, she tried to find something to amuse herself. 

She ended up searching for videos of Spider-Man, watching the few videos she could find on YouTube. It was then she remembered she now had his number. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone to talk to right now. 

_‘Hey’_ she sent, not sure how else to start a conversation. 

A response came through not long after, _‘hey! whats up?’_

The two texted back and forth for a few minutes, Wanda expressing how bored she was sitting in the house all day. This was when Peter had asked if she wanted to hang out somewhere - he was already wandering around outside, he had said. She assumed this meant he had been out as Spider-Man, but of course she couldn’t let him know that she was aware of his secret identity. 

“Natasha?” Wanda called out, leaving her bedroom. She found the redhead sitting in the living room, watching what looked to be the news, “Is it okay if I go out for a bit?” 

The older woman looked at her with a raised eyebrow, “To where, exactly?” 

“Peter wants to hang out.” 

Nat seemed to take a second to think about it, even going as far to check the time before answering, “Alright, but like last night I need to know where you are. And I want you home by no later than 8:30.” 

“Nat-” she groaned, “I thought the curfew was only at the tower.” 

“No, I said it wouldn’t be an issue until we left the tower. It’s hardly been a week, I know you haven’t forgotten the basic rules I first gave you. Curfew and keeping me in the know as to where you are. You aren’t familiar with this city and if something were to happen you have to try not to use your powers. The best way to make sure nothing happens is taking these steps to help me keep you safe.” 

“You don’t have to keep me safe. I can take care of myself.” 

“It’s my job to keep you safe.” 

“No, it’s not!” Wanda nearly yelled. She wasn’t sure why she was so irritable at the moment, but it felt like something in her had just snapped. She hadn’t argued back last night, but she was going to now. 

“Yes it is. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m in charge of you now.” Nat responded, unaffected by the anger thrown her way. 

“You aren’t my mother!” the teen yelled, “You’re just pretending to be. I’m not a child and I don’t want to be treated like one! I know you and Stark are keeping something from me, too! How is that fair to me when I’m the one who you decided to throw into this situation?!” 

“Wanda,” Natasha warned, “Lower your voice. And please, calm down.” 

“No!” she walked towards the door, “I’m going out for a bit. While I’m gone maybe you can call Stark so you can continue to plan my life for me!” she walked out and slammed the door behind her, leaving Natasha alone in the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quite a bit happened in this chapter, I feel like. Next chapter should be up soon (I make no promises but it is almost finished already. I was going to have it be part of this one before I realized I could leave you all on a cliffhanger). In a new house, Nat and Stark seem to be hiding something, Wanda running out...
> 
> As always, let me know what you think! I absolutely love comments and they inspire me to write more. I also always try to respond if you have any questions!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a warning for this chapter: there is a bit of a description of a brief panic attack. It passes very quickly, but I wanted to make you all aware that it does happen.

Wanda began walking down the sidewalk, not sure exactly where she was going but she texted Peter nonetheless. The area looked familiar enough - she could tell she wasn’t far from Midtown Tech. Of course they had gotten a house somewhat close to the school. 

‘ _Meet at the park near the school?’_ she asked, getting a confirmation from the boy right after. She got to the park first, sitting on a swing and waiting for the other teen to arrive. Or would Natasha find her first? Was Natasha going to come looking for her at all? 

Wanda finally began to calm down, thinking back to the random outburst she had just had. She hadn’t meant to be cruel to the woman, it had just happened. Since she first arrived in America, Natasha had been nothing but kind to her, and that’s how Wanda thanked her? 

The teen stared down at the ground, regretting having yelled at Nat. She had just been concerned for her safety, there wasn’t anything wrong with that. But she had also been keeping something from Wanda, so maybe there was a reason to be somewhat irritated with the woman. 

“Wanda?” Peter asked as he walked up to her, “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah.” Wanda sniffled. When had she started crying? “I just got into a bit of an argument with my mom.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, sitting on the swing next to her. 

“Since we moved here, she has treated me like a child. I didn’t really care at first, but for some reason it upset me last night and again today. I yelled at her.” 

Peter nodded as if he understood, “It’s like I said yesterday, she’s probably just being overprotective since what happened...especially since she lost your brother…” 

Right, she had told him about Pietro...but he wasn’t Natasha’s child. She had hardly even known him. That couldn’t be the reason she was trying to control Wanda’s life, could it? 

“Maybe,” Wanda agreed quietly, though she doubted that was it, “I shouldn’t have yelled at her, should I?” 

The boy shrugged, “I think it’s normal to fight with your parents. I mean, even sometimes I fight with May. But I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try and talk it out with her, you know?” 

“I will,” she sighed, “But I don’t want to go home yet. Is it okay if we just stay here for a bit?” 

*** 

The two teens ended up staying at the park until around 8:15. While at first it had been awkward due to Wanda crying over her argument with Natasha, they were quickly able to move past that and enjoy spending time together until Peter left to go back to this apartment (so he claimed, but Wanda wondered if it was actually to go out as Spider-Man again since she had interrupted him earlier). 

Wanda had begun walking in the direction she remembered coming from, but let her mind wander as she tried to think about what she was going to say to Natasha when she got home. She had to apologize, but what all was she going to apologize for? For raising her voice, yes, but should she apologize for the words she said? 

After she had been walking for a bit, she stopped and looked around. Panic started to rise in her when she realized she didn’t recognize where she was at all; even when she had been walking to the park, she was able to use familiar landmarks to find her way to the school and found her way from there. Now, she had no clue what to look for. They had only been in their new house for a few hours, and Wanda hadn’t paid much attention to the outside of it. When she had walked out earlier, she was so angry and so focused on getting away she hadn’t bothered to take note of where exactly she was leaving. 

_‘I’ll just text Natasha and ask for the address…’_ she thought, _‘Then I can put it in the GPS on the phone...it was a feature for when you’re walking, right?’_ Her panic only calmed down for a second though. As soon as she pulled out her phone, she saw that it had apparently died at some point. 

_‘She’s really going to kill me…’_ was the only thought Wanda had before the panic she was feeling skyrocketed. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe and she couldn’t concentrate at all to what was around her and she had no way to contact Natasha who didn’t even know where she was-

“Miss?” a voice said from behind her, causing her to jump back into reality and let out a scream as she turned to face the person. She felt her powers instinctively trying to come out, to protect her against whoever has snuck up on her. Quickly pushing them down, another feeling of relief came over her when she saw that familiar outfit. She had spent a good portion of her day earlier watching videos on the person now standing in front of her. At least she knew that Spider-Man wasn’t there to hurt her. 

“Ma’am,” Spider-Man said, again trying to get her attention, “Are you alright?” Wanda was now trying not to laugh at the ridiculous voice and accent Peter was trying to use. Laughing was a good thing right now, right?

“Just a little lost,” she said, knowing she could trust him, “I just moved to Queens and don’t remember the way home...and my phones dead so I can’t call my mom.” 

“Do you know the address?” 

She shook her head, “We just moved…”

“Okay, maybe I can help-” 

“WANDA!” Natasha’s yell cut Peter off, “There you are!” Wanda tried to place the tone of her voice. Was she angry...or was that concern? She couldn’t tell. 

“M-Mom…” Wanda stuttered, turning to look at Nat as a feeling of relief washed over her, quickly followed by the realization that she was probably about to get lectured. How much trouble was she about to be in? 

“Do you have any idea what time it is?! You cannot disappear like that!” while she was no longer raising her voice, it was obvious the teen was still being scolded. Nat grabbed Wanda’s wrist and started to pull her away, back to their house. The two walked in a tense silence until stepping through the front door, “You were supposed to be home forty-five minutes ago, Wanda. I know you were upset earlier but that does not mean you can just...run away! And you turned your phone off! You can’t do that!” 

“My phone died...I was trying to find my way back home, I got turned around.” Forty-five minutes? Had it really been that long? “But I think Peter was about to offer to help me find my way back home.” 

This did nothing to calm down the older woman, “And how would he have done that?” she snapped, “Do you know if he saw your powers?” 

“My powers?” Wanda asked, now confused, “I didn’t use my powers.” 

“You almost did, I saw you. When he first approached you, your eyes were red!” 

“I…” she didn’t know what to say. She had tried to suppress her powers, but she had been extremely panicked so maybe it hadn’t worked as well as she thought...if he had seen something, though, wouldn’t he have asked her about it right then? “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell earlier and I didn’t mean to stay out late, I just got lost. I’m sorry if I used my powers, I didn’t mean to. I…” she felt like there was more to apologize for, but she couldn’t think of what. 

Before she knew it, Natasha had wrapped her in a hug. It was unexpected, but Wanda wrapped her arms around the other woman and put her head on her shoulder as she felt tears start to run down her face. Why had she started crying again? 

“Wanda,” Nat said with a much calmer tone this time, “I was worried about you. Please don’t pull a stunt like that again.” 

“I didn’t mean to make you worry.” Wanda paused before continuing, “You didn’t try looking for me when I first left.” 

“I know. I was going to, but Clint convinced me that wasn’t the best thing to do.” she admitted, earning a bit of a laugh from the younger girl. 

“You asked Clint for advice on what to do?” 

“We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about how you can’t run off and not tell me where you are, let your phone die, then get lost. You could’ve gotten hurt, or worse. You do realize if someone finds out about your powers...” she trailed off, letting Wanda fill in the gaps of what she hadn’t said.

“But I didn’t and you found me. But now I want to know what Clint told you.” the anger had died down so quickly, Wanda believed that Nat really had just been worried about her at this point. She wasn’t angry at her earlier outburst anymore, which was a relief. 

Nat sighed, “I can’t say I’ve ever been in charge of a teenager. I gave in and asked him for advice when you ran off; trust me, he got a good laugh out of it too. Now, while I’m glad that I got you home safely, don’t think you’re getting off this easily.” Ah, there it was. 

Wanda stepped away from the hug and wiped her eyes, “What does that mean?” 

“You’re grounded.” 

*** 

Peter was happy as he left the park. He had been out patrolling when Wanda had first texted him, and for some reason he got excited at the idea of hanging out with her again. Walking up to her crying he hadn’t been so excited about, but he was glad he was able to help cheer her up. 

As it got later, he knew he should go back on patrol, so he said his goodbyes to the other teen and made his way somewhere where he could change back into his homemade suit. As he swung around a bit, his thoughts kept going back to Wanda. There was something about her that he felt was drawing him to her. 

_‘Okay Peter, maybe you do like her...you’ve got to get over it!’_ He tried reasoning with himself. He didn’t want to admit he had a crush on the new girl, especially since he hardly knew her, but the feeling was getting harder to ignore. There was just something about her… 

It was a little after nine when he was back in the area where him and Wanda had been, when he noticed someone who looked like they could use some help. As he got closer, he realized he knew said person. What was Wanda still doing out this late? Had she not gone back home yet? 

“Miss?” he said, trying to deepen his voice so she wouldn’t recognize it. She turned around, and for a split second Peter could’ve sworn her eyes had been red. Surely he was imagining things, right? “Ma’am, are you alright?” he asked, doing his best to not let on that he knew her. 

After hearing that she was lost, he had been prepared to attempt to help however he could, but her mom had beat him to it. He found the entire situation to be a bit weird, but he wasn’t about to say anything about it. 

For the rest of the night, he kept thinking back to when he had first approached her. Peter was trying to convince himself that he hadn’t seen Wanda’s eyes glowing red, but it had seemed so real. But there was no way that was possible...right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I imagined Natasha as being angry when Wanda first walked out, but more worried when she didn't come home, if that makes sense? Also bonus points for Clint giving parenting advice...right? 
> 
> As always, let me know what you think!


	9. Chapter 9

Wanda looked at Natasha with a sense of disbelief, “I’m...grounded?” 

“Yes,” Nat nodded, “For a week, assuming you don’t do anything in that week to get it extended.” 

“So I what...can’t watch TV?” she asked. Wanda didn’t really do too much except homework, so what exactly was the older woman going to stop her from doing? She would still have to go to school everyday, and surely she wouldn’t stop her from talking to Peter and compromising the mission...right?

Natasha nodded, “No TV, no phone, and no hanging out after school. Don’t even try asking.” 

“So...you’re stopping me from completing the mission?” 

“I didn’t say that.” 

“You said I can’t spend time with Peter or even text him if you’re taking my phone away. But also...what if there’s an emergency and I can’t contact you?” 

Nat thought for a second, “I will _consider_ letting you take it to school, but don’t get your hopes up. As for your other concern, It’s not going to stop you from making friends or whatever else. Just about every teenager gets grounded at some point, and phones haven’t been around forever. You didn’t have one until just recently.” 

“Fine…” Wanda gave in, handing over the still dead cellphone, “So I guess I’m going to bed now?” 

“Correct.” 

***

_‘....Wanda! WANDA!’_

The teen jerked away, gasping for air as she felt herself falling. She first felt herself land on something soft - her bed? - before rolling to the floor with a thud. Before she could even register what was going on, she started sobbing. 

“Wanda...hey, it’s okay…it’s okay. Shhh come on, get up…” a voice said as she felt someone gently grab her arm, helping her sit back on the edge of the bed. 

“N...Natasha?” Wanda said between sobs, feeling the other woman wrap her arms around her and pull her close, “What...what happened?” 

“You were having a nightmare.” 

“I fell…” the witch managed to stop crying uncontrollably, though she was still sniffling, “My powers?” 

“Yes.” 

A realization hit Wanda, and she suddenly was overcome with guilt, “Did I...did I go into your mind while I was asleep?” 

“Yes,” Natasha answered honestly, confirming Wanda’s fear and feeling her flinch at the answer, “But it’s okay. I know you didn’t mean to.” 

“But I gave you a nightmare.” 

“Because you were obviously having a bad one.” Wanda wasn’t sure she had ever heard Nat use such a soft voice, noting that the former spy was also rubbing circles on her back in an attempt to try and calm her down, “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked the teen. 

“I...don’t think I remember it.” she couldn’t be sure, but based on the look Nat gave her she wondered if she had been talking in her sleep giving the spy an idea of what she had been dreaming about, “Did...did I say anything?” 

“If you don’t remember, I don’t know if-” 

“Please.” 

Nat sighed, “You were screaming in Sokovian, mostly. If I had to guess I would say you sounded like you were in pain...you also called out for Pietro.” 

A fresh wave of tears hit Wanda as she realized what she must have been dreaming of. The experimentations that had given her powers had been painful, to say the least. She knew all the others who had volunteered had died during the experiments, her and her brother being the exception. They had been separated while HYDRA was testing the scepter on them, and she knew she had often cried out for her brother when the pain got worse. 

“Wanda?” Nat said with a quiet voice, “If you need to talk…” 

“What do you tell people about Pietro?” Wanda asked suddenly, tears still streaming down her face as she had remembered something Peter had said to her. _‘..especially since she lost your brother…’_ rang through her head. 

Natasha looked confused. “What?” 

“Pietro...you told me not to lie about him. I didn’t...I told Peter about him once. He thought that Pietro was your child that you lost.” her voice broke at the end. 

“I haven’t talked about your brother to anyone. I don’t think it’s my place to decide what I should say.” 

“If you say you are my mother, you can’t say that you aren’t...weren’t...also my twin's mother.” 

“Are you okay with that, though? If it comes up with someone, I can change the subject...I’m sure nobody would pressure me into talking about it. And on that note, never let anybody pressure you into talking about it either. Not even me. If you don’t want to talk, then don’t.” 

“But you want me to talk about it.” 

“I think it could help. It’s been a few months since the battle, and-” 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Wanda cut her off, yet again wiping her eyes in an attempt to stop crying, “I’m not ready to talk about it.” 

Nat nodded in understanding, still rubbing circles on her back, “Do you think you can get back to sleep?” she asked, getting a head shake in response, “Okay, how about we find a movie to watch?” she suggested instead. 

“But I’m grounded,” Wanda countered, “And you need to sleep…” 

“I’ll make an exception to the no TV rule for now. And I won’t be getting back to sleep anytime soon, anyways.” 

Another pang of guilt went through the witch. She hated that her powers would sometimes act on their own will in her sleep, though typically they didn’t reach out to others. She would wake up to a few objects moved across the room mostly; she hadn’t projected nightmares onto anybody else in a while - at least that she knew of, anyways. 

“Do you want to talk about your dream?” Wanda whispered, feeling she should return the offer. 

“I don’t think that’s something you want to hear about,” was the answer given, “Now come on, let’s go find a movie to put on.” 

*** 

Wanda hadn’t been able to get back to sleep that night, or even throughout the day on Sunday. By Monday morning, she was running on two hours of sleep she had managed to get that night and the last place she wanted to be was walking down the hallways of Midtown Tech. It figured that she had only managed to successfully fall asleep so shortly before Natasha had woken her up for school - she was just thankful that since she was no longer living in Manhattan, she was able to wake up slightly later. Regardless, she was sure that she looked like she was operating on very little sleep.

“Hey!” Peter greeted before the start of their first class, “Is everything okay? I tried texting yesterday and never heard back.” 

“Oh,” Wanda suppressed a yawn, “I’m grounded because of Saturday. I got lost and ended up missing curfew.” of course he already knew she had gotten lost seeing as he had offered to help her, but that was his secret identity that had seen her. 

“Oh dang. Well, I’m glad you found your way home safely,” Peter knew it came out awkwardly, but he wasn’t sure what else to say. He had seen her get dragged off by her mother. He thought back to the red in her eyes he was still trying to convince himself he had only imagined; he briefly considered asking her about it, but the class began before he could fully talk himself into it. 

For the rest of the week, he never asked. It seemed too stupid and there was never a chance to ask where somebody else wouldn’t hear the question. Seeing as Wanda didn’t have her phone for the week, he couldn’t exactly ask over text either. 

Regardless, he still enjoyed talking to her when others were around. He made a point to talk to her in the morning before class and sit with her at lunch (especially since there were no emergency AcaDec practices this week). Ned always sat with them too, and Peter was glad that everyone seemed to get along. Starting on that Wednesday, MJ also began sitting with them, instead of sitting by herself as she usually preferred. 

It was weird to see MJ talk so much as she conversed with Wanda, but neither boy thought much of it. At least there was someone else there to help fill in the awkward pauses between conversation topics; nobody really seemed to care that MJ only tended to bring up trivia like questions to Wanda. 

Looking back, the question that MJ asked at lunch on Friday shouldn’t have been a huge shock to them, yet it still caught Peter off guard. 

“So Wanda,” MJ walked up to the three others right as they sat down, “You should come to an Academic Decathlon meeting sometime and see how you like it.” 

“Why?” Wanda asked, looking confused. Peter had almost choked on his drink and Ned was trying his best not to laugh at Peter. 

“To see if you would be interested in joining the team,” was the nonchalant answer MJ gave, “From what I’ve seen and heard, I think you could make a great addition.” 

“Oh, uh...okay.” 

“Perfect. Peter can tell you when the next one is.” 

“You’re not sitting with us today?” Ned asked, sounding a bit confused, “Were you just trying to scope out if Wanda would be a good candidate or something?” 

“Nah, I have something to do.” MJ shrugged, “Maybe I’ll see you Monday.” 

The three remaining friends ate and continued talking, Peter playing a newfound game he called ‘how much can I make Wanda laugh’, before their conversation turned to schoolwork. 

“So, how’s your workload been so far, Wanda? Have the teachers gone easy on you?” Ned asked. 

She shook her head, “It is a bit overwhelming, but I’ve been able to keep up so far. Though I’ve been considering trying to see if I could get an extension on my English paper...do you think he would allow it?” she asked, referring to the English teacher. 

Peter shrugged, “Worth a shot, even if you just get an extra weekend to work on it. Worst case scenario you get told no.” 

Wanda now nodded, standing up and gathering her things, “I think I’ll go talk to him before class. I’ll see you there.” 

Peter watched as she walked away, zoning out as Ned called out his name. 

“Peter. Peter? Dude,” his best friend said, “You’ve got it bad, don’t you?” 

“Huh?” Peter snapped back into reality. 

“For Wanda. You so like her.” 

“I do not!” 

“You should ask her out. Worst case scenario she says no,” Ned laughed, using the words that Peter had just said to the girl in question. 

“Worst case scenario she doesn’t want to be friends anymore!” Peter said with a slight whine to his voice, “Don’t say anything to her! I’d rather have her as a friend then somehow mess everything up.” 

“What about the dance in a few weeks? You could ask her to go with you to that.” 

“What dance?” 

“Do you not pay attention to announcements?” Ned almost rolled his eyes at his friend, “The charity dance student council does. They’re asking students to vote for the charity it goes to this year, and I think the Sokovian Relief Fund is currently winning. You should ask her to be your date! It’s perfect.” 

Peter sounded exasperated, “Ned, no…!” 

“I don’t see why not! You obviously like her!” 

“I already told you I don’t want to mess up our friendship!” 

“Dude,” Ned reasoned, “If she doesn’t show any interest in you, then just go to the dance as friends. Plenty of people do that. I’ll help you, trust me. It’ll be great.” 

Peter groaned and put his head in his hands, “Fine,” he gave in, “But if something goes wrong I’m blaming you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel this chapter is slightly a mess, but oh well. 
> 
> The charity thing is an idea I got from a deleted scene in Homecoming, by the way. There was a brief mention of a "Sokovian Relief Fund lunch" and yeah, it's now helping me get to certain scenes I've been planning since before I even started writing the first chapter. 
> 
> As always, let me know what you think and feel free to reach out to me!


	10. Chapter 10

Wanda had gotten her phone back the following night, which Peter quickly found out when she responded to all the texts he had sent her before being told she didn’t have her phone. 

At first he had been confused when he got a collection of texts from her saying something along the lines of _‘Yes I’m fine’_ , as she had decided it would be funny to respond to each message he had sent (it hadn’t been that many, but seeing the notifications of her simply saying she was fine with no context had freaked him out at first). 

Peter had managed to keep a conversation going for about two hours, which felt like a new record for him. He hoped it hadn’t annoyed her that he didn’t let the texts stop for a bit, especially since they had only known each other a few weeks, but he couldn’t help it. He was a smiling idiot whenever he saw her name pop up on his phone. 

“So,” May asked him over breakfast on Sunday, “You gonna tell me who you were up so late talking to?” 

“What?” Peter asked, caught off guard. May had never really cared about how late he stayed up on weekends and he hadn’t been in the main part of the apartment the entire time he had been texting Wanda. 

May smiled, showing she wasn’t upset or about to lecture him, “I know you stayed up last night talking to someone, and based on your reaction I’m going to guess it’s a special someone?” 

“May!” he complained, “No, it was just a friend.” 

“So you’re not going to tell me about her?” 

Peter put his head in his hands much like he had done when Ned was questioning him about his feelings for the Sokovian, “Oh my god…” 

“Is it Wanda?” 

His head shot up at that, “How did you know?” 

His aunt shrugged, “You meet her then are using your phone more than I think I’ve ever seen you use it. Wasn’t hard to connect the dots. Have you asked her on a date yet?” 

“Why does everyone think I’m going to ask her out!” 

Now she let out a laugh, “I’m just teasing, I think it’s cute. But for the record, from what her mom told me she isn’t typically the type of person to go out of her way to talk to someone. So maybe her staying up to talk to you could mean something.” 

“It means we’re friends.” 

“All I’m saying is maybe it could be more than that. You’ll never know if you don’t ask.” 

*** 

Monday morning during the announcements, it was confirmed that the winning charity that proceeds from the dance would be going to was the Sokovian Relief Fund. Wanda hadn’t been paying much attention to talk about the dance, seeing as she didn’t imagine she’d be going, but she was somewhat shocked to hear that the students had voted for the charity they did. She silently wondered if her arrival at the school had anything to do with it. She was oblivious to the look that Ned had given Peter when it had been announced. 

In fact, she didn’t notice the looks Ned continued giving Peter throughout the day. What she did notice was how he got up and left halfway through lunch without explaining. Wanda found this weird, but she wasn’t going to voice it - she figured whatever he had to do was none of her business. 

Not even a minute after Ned had walked away, Peter’s phone lit up. 

_Ned: Okay dude, nows your chance. Ask her!!!_

“Is everything okay?” Wanda asked. 

“Yeah…” Peter trailed off, “He just...had to finish his project for Harrington’s class.” 

“Oh! We still need to finish that too. It’s due on Friday?” 

He nodded, still trying to process the fact that Ned had really just left them alone with no warning to Peter. _‘I could’ve at least planned something if he had told me this was his plan…’_

“Peter?” he snapped out of his daze when Wanda called his name, and he looked over at her to see her smiling at him, “Is everything okay with you?” 

“Yeah sorry,” he hoped he wasn’t blushing, “I uh, was just thinking…” he trailed off once again, not sure what to say now. He could tell this wasn’t going well. _‘I can’t do this…’_

Wanda was looking at him curiously, waiting for him to expand on his statement. “I was just thinking maybe we could get together sometime this week and finish the project? And then maybe get dinner afterwards?” he felt his heart racing as he said the last part, realizing he had just halfway asked her on a date. In a moment of panic, he added on, “Like last time, with us and May and your mom?” 

She looked slightly taken aback, “It should be fine. I need to check first, but I don’t think it will be an issue.” 

“Does...does tomorrow work? There’s an AcaDec practice you could watch, then we could go work on the project…” 

“Sounds like a plan.” 

*** 

“So...you didn’t ask her?” Ned questioned while on the phone with Peter later that evening. 

“I was going to!” Peter sighed, falling back on the couch in his apartment, “I kinda did?” 

“How do you kind of ask someone to a dance?” 

“I didn’t ask her to the dance...I invited her over to finish the project for Harrington, and then to get dinner.” 

He could hear the excitement in his friends voice, “Yes!” Ned exclaimed, “So you asked her out, just not to the dance. That’s fine though, you can ask her to the dance at dinner after seeing how it goes!” 

“About that…” 

“...What did you do, Peter?” 

“I said dinner between us, May, and her mom.” Peter groaned, reliving the moment, “I panicked! God she probably thinks I’m so lame…” 

“But she agreed?” 

“Yeah,” 

“That’s a start, at least? Hey look I gotta go, see you tomorrow.” 

“Later,” Peter sighed and ended the call, throwing his head back and hitting the couch. 

“Peter?” May asked, walking into the apartment, “Everything alright?” 

He looked up at his aunt, “We don’t have plans for dinner tomorrow, right?” 

“No? Why, what’s up?” 

“I asked Wanda out to dinner,” he could see the smile starting to form on her face, “But also you and her mom.” 

May busted out laughing, not saying anything at first. Peter threw his head back again, wishing he could disappear. “Okay,” May said after a minute, “Not what I was expecting but we can work with it.” 

“What?” 

“I’m going to help you.” 

Peter’s desire to disappear suddenly grew, “This is so embarrassing…” 

“Oh come on. She’ll never know.” 

*** 

When Peter had first asked her to dinner, Wanda felt her heart speed up. And then he added that it would be like last time, with everyone there. She could feel how nervous he was - it was practically radiating off of him. She didn’t need to look into his mind to see it (not that she had ever looked into his mind). 

Natasha was quick with picking her up per usual, and she continued the tradition of asking “How was your day?” when she got in the car. 

“Peter wants the four of us to get dinner tomorrow,” Wanda answered, “Stay after school to watch the practice for the academic team he’s on, then go finish our project.” 

Nat raised an eyebrow, “Four of us? Who are the other two?” 

“You and May.” 

“Peter wants all of us to get dinner?” 

“I think he was just going to ask me but he panicked and added you guys into the invitation.” Wanda explained, which got a grin out of Natasha. 

“He panicked and invited the parents along…” she laughed, “That’s a new one. Don’t worry, I’ll tag along.” 

“That’s what I’m worried about.” 

“Would you rather I can’t make it?” 

“I don’t know.” Wanda sighed. Part of her was really excited at the thought of Peter asking her, and only her, to dinner. At the same time, the thought of the two adults being there didn’t sound awful...or did it? She really had no clue what to think now. 

“That’s not helpful. Would you rather be alone with him? I can always find a way to keep May from being there.” 

“No, it’s fine...don’t interfere.” 

“Whatever you say.” Natasha still had a grin on her face, which didn’t help ease any worries Wanda was feeling. 

*** 

The next day went by faster than Peter or Wanda hoped it would. Not that the other knew, but both were dreading whatever it was their parental figure was going to do that night. Wanda knew that Natasha had gotten May’s number, so she figured the two had probably been talking about what was going to happen that night. 

At the end of the school day, Wanda was introduced to the members on the AcaDec team she hadn’t met yet by Mr. Harrington, and sat and watched for the majority of the practice. Near the end, Harrington had asked if she wanted to try to compete in the last couple of rounds. 

“Oh come on,” Flash said, “We’re really pretending she has any chance of making the team? I bet she’d fail a basic spelling competition.” 

“Worried she’s gonna take your spot?” MJ quipped back, not looking up from the booklet she had been reading. 

“No, I’m worried she’s going to join and then make us lose every competition we ever have. We need someone smarter than her.” 

Wanda didn’t say anything to Flash, but rather walked up and took a seat, “I would like to try.” she said, earning smiles from nearly every other member. Flash might’ve thought she wouldn’t be a good member of the team, but now she was determined to prove him wrong. After her encounter with him on her first day of school, she didn’t want him to beat her down again. She was stronger than that, and didn’t want anybody else to feel like they had to come run to her rescue as Peter had before. 

Flash rolled his eyes, “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So originally I wasn't going to end this chapter here, but I did because I was wondering if you guys would want to see how the AcaDec practice with Wanda participating goes. Is that something you guys want to see or no? Let me know! 
> 
> Let me know what you think in general, too! Do you think Nat and May are going to conspire and come up with a plan of their own? Will Peter ever actually ask Wanda to the dance? And there's still the looming question of what Natasha and Tony are keeping from Wanda...


	11. Chapter 11

Wanda had walked up to the stage and took the seat that a member of the Academic Decathlon team had just left, deciding she was going to try her hand at participating. She hadn’t originally seriously considered joining the team, but since Flash had tried to state that she wasn’t smart enough, she was determined to prove him wrong. 

“Alright,” the student asking the questions, Wanda believed her name was Liz, said, “Everybody ready?” she asked the two teams sitting on the stage. 

Getting four confirmations, one from each student, Liz asked the first question, “What is the heaviest naturally occurring element?” 

A boy on the other team hit the bell first, “Uranium,” he answered, earning a nod and an affirmative ‘correct’. 

“Pastels are used as a medium for what?” 

Now Wanda was the first one to hit the bell, “Drawing.” 

“She got it wrong!,” Flash yelled, “It’s painting!” 

“Actually Flash, she got the question right,” Liz called back to him, “Good job, Wanda. The answer is drawing, not painting. Okay, next question…”

The two teams continued on for a few more minutes, both doing their best to get more correct answers than the others. They were currently tied, and practice was coming to an end. 

“Okay, last question,” Liz explained, “Whoever gets this right will win this round and then we’ll end for the day. Sound good?” getting nods in response, she asked, “What country produces the most coffee in the world?” 

Wanda hit the bell, pausing for a second after doing so. She searched her brain for the answer, but she wasn’t sure. “Mexico?” she guessed. 

“I’m sorry, that’s incorrect,” the senior said, turning to the other team. 

“Brazil,” they answered, getting the final answer correct. 

Flash started laughing in the back of the room, “See? She lost.” 

“She still got almost every question she answered right,” Peter spoke up, “And got one right that you got wrong.” 

At this point Wanda went to leave the room to wait for Peter outside, not wanting to be involved in whatever drama was about to start. 

“Wait,” Liz called out, “We have an available spot on the team, and I think it’s safe to say it’s yours if you want it,” she smiled, “Right, Mr. Harrington?” 

“Of course!” the teacher exclaimed, “You’d have to be able to commit the time to attend practice, meets, and of course studying though.” 

“I, uh…” Wanda wasn’t sure what to do, “I have to talk to my mom about it first.” 

Harrington nodded, “Of course, of course. Just let me know by Friday.” 

Flash looked beyond angry at this point, but rather than saying anything else he simply stormed out. Everybody else took that as their cue to leave as well, the rest of the students filing out of the school. Wanda trailed behind Peter as he started to walk, since they were supposed to be going to his home to finish their project. 

“Sorry about Flash,” Peter offered as they walked, “He always feels like he has to be the smartest person in the room. But...how did you know all that stuff? The questions?” 

“Not your fault,” Wanda hummed, “And I’ve been studying random things for a while now. Whatever I could manage to get my hands on. Of course I don’t know much about American history or where coffee comes from…” 

Peter laughed at that, “We’re all bound to get questions wrong, we can’t know everything. But you should consider joining the team, if you want to, that is.” he added on, stumbling over his words, “We’d all love to have you join, well maybe not Flash but that’s another reason you should, you know? To annoy him.” 

“I think my mom has to agree to it first, especially if it requires things after or out of school.” 

“Do you think she’ll say no?” 

“I have no clue.” 

Soon enough, the two were walking into the Parker’s apartment, where May was sitting in the living room. 

“Hey you two!” she greeted, “Have a good day?” 

“Yeah,” Peter answered as he put his stuff down, “Wanda killed it at Decathlon practice, they want her to join the team. You should convince her mom to let her join.” he joked. 

“Oh really? That’s great! I can talk to her about it if you want,” May laughed looking over at Wanda, only getting a small nod in response. Wanda was still unsure about if she really wanted to join the team or not - when MJ had suggested it, she had never mentioned it to Natasha. She wasn’t sure if Nat would be against the idea to begin with. 

The two teens went to work on their project, which proved to take slightly longer to finish than originally thought. When they were about halfway through putting it together, May looked into the room. 

“Hey Pete, I got called into work so I’ll have to skip on dinner for now,” she said, “I left some money on the counter for when you guys go out, though. Text me when you leave and when you get home, okay?” 

Peter looked up, slightly confused, “You got called into work? I thought you didn’t work nights anymore.” 

“Short-staffed, they need extra help. Be good and call if you need anything,” May said as she went to grab her purse and walked out of the apartment. Peter wondered if his aunt was up to something, if she really had planned something as a way to ‘help him’ with Wanda. Surely missing dinner wasn’t it though, was it? After all, Wanda’s mom was still going to be there, right? 

By the time they were finishing up the final details of the assignment, Wanda’s phone lit up with a text from Natasha, _‘Gotta deal with something, have fun at dinner. I put a little bit of money in your backpack that you can use. I should be done in time to pick you up. Don’t you dare try walking home on your own again!’_

Confused, Wanda looked through her backpack and sure enough found the money Natasha had been talking about. When had she put that there? Did this mean she knew all along she wasn’t going to be eating dinner with them tonight? 

“My mom can’t make it either, it looks like,” Wanda said to Peter, “Looks like it’s just us.” 

“Did work also call her in?” 

“She didn’t say,” she answered, though she knew if something really had come up it definitely had to do with ‘work’. 

“Oh, well...uh, there’s a deli not too far from here if you just want to go pick something up from there? We can find somewhere to sit and eat?” 

“Sounds good.” 

They finished up their projects and walked the few blocks to the place Peter had mentioned, where it seemed he was a regular customer. Wanda, not wanting to take too long looking at the menu, ordered the same thing that Peter did. Instead of trying to find somewhere outside where they could eat, the two just wandered back to the apartment. 

Once again, the two had managed to fall into silence as they ate. Peter was trying to find any way to bring up the dance without just straight up asking her, taking a good five minutes before he realized it was obvious what to say. 

“So...the dance that’s coming up is doing a charity event for Sokovia.” he said. 

“Yeah, I heard. A lot of people gave me looks when they first said that.” Wanda responded, shrugging, “How do the dances work? Do they theme it to the charity?” 

“Uh...I don’t think so? Not really sure what they’ll do this year.” 

“I hope whoever is planning it doesn’t try and get me to help somehow...I know nothing about planning dances or how they even work. I don’t even think I’ll go.” 

Peter felt his heart start to sink, “Why not? It could be fun.” 

“I feel like it would be weird for me to go. Especially if they try to let me go for free since I’m the only Sokovian at the school. I don’t know…” 

“What if you...went with someone? Like a date?” Peter was grasping at what little hope he had left, managing to mumble, “Like...me?” 

“Huh?” 

“What if...would you like…to go to the dance with me? You don’t have to, of course, if you don’t even want to go-” 

Wanda cut him off, smiling as she spoke, “I’ll go to the dance with you, Peter.” 

“Even though you just said you don’t want to go?” 

“Maybe going with somebody else makes it seem less awful.” 

Peter smiled, “Alright...okay. So...we’re going to the dance.” 

The two fell back into silence, though it felt a lot more comfortable now, at least for Peter. Maybe he should’ve felt more nervous, and maybe Wanda was now feeling nervous, but he was just relieved that he was able to ask her at all. 

Another hour had passed, with the television having been turned on, when Wanda thought to text Natasha asking when she would be picked up. 

_‘Hey are you still picking me up?’_ she pressed send, expecting a quick response. Roughly ten minutes later, May came home and smiled when she saw the two. 

Peter looked over at her, “Did you really go to work?” 

“Wanda, your mom asked me to drop you off at home.” she said first, “And no, it was part of my plan to get you to ask her to the dance, which I hope you did.” 

Peter looked like he wanted to be anywhere else in that moment as Wanda laughed and looked down at her phone, seeing that Natasha had sent a brief message a few minutes before, simply stating: _‘Peter’s aunt is going to take you home. I’ll be a bit later than first thought.’_

“Really May…” Peter groaned, “You had to say that.” 

“Yes, he asked me.” Wanda said as she went to get her backpack, “I’ll see you later?” she asked Peter, getting a nod in response as he still looked embarrassed. 

The drive back to the new house was relatively quick, with May making sure Wanda was able to get inside okay and would be good alone until her mother got back. When the teen was finally able to assure the older woman she would be fine, she locked the door and looked around for any clues that might tell her where Natasha had gone. If she was running late, then maybe it really hadn’t been a plan to get her and Peter alone. But it brought up the question of where she did go. 

Not surprisingly, she found no answers anywhere in the house. So, she picked up a blanket and turned the TV on in the living room, intending to stay awake until Nat got home. The last thing Wanda remembered before falling asleep was glancing at the time and seeing it read three in the morning. 

_‘Where are you, Nat?’_ she thought before sleep overtook her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure how I feel about this chapter, but for some reason it was a pain to write. But let me know what you think! 
> 
> Also, if anybody wants to like.....talk about this ship (Wanda/Peter) or whatever....pls message me on tumblr (historywonderland) or,,,,something. please? (I need people who don't think I'm weird for shipping this-)


	12. Chapter 12

“We can’t tell her,” Natasha stated, shaking her head, “We...I can’t do that to her. She’s been through enough.” 

Tony frowned, “You don’t think she’d want to know? This is huge-”

“You don’t think I know that?” Nat spat back, glaring at the other, “She’ll think I knew all along. She’ll think this was all planned.” 

“I want it on the record that I honestly didn’t know. Trust me, when I put her into the system that was the last thing I expected to see.”

“And you’re sure you didn’t fuck something up?” 

“I’m honestly hurt you think I could do something like that.” Tony said, “No, I didn’t mess anything up. But shouldn’t this be a good thing?” 

“This shouldn’t even be possible! If you think she’s going to be completely happy with this…” Nat stopped, looking over at the clock, “Damn it! I have to go if I want to be back before she wakes up. Don’t tell anyone what you’ve found.” she said, sending a final warning glare Tony’s way before going to leave the compound with a lot more on her mind than there was when she first arrived. 

“That shouldn’t be possible…” she mumbled to herself as she got in her car, “How the hell did this happen!” 

***

By the time Natasha got back to the house in Queens, it was roughly four in the morning. She sighed when she saw Wanda asleep on the couch, assuming that the teen was sleeping there because she had tried to stay awake and wait for her to get home. 

Instead of waking her up, though, Nat made sure Wanda seemed comfortable before kissing the top of her head. She then went to get her laptop and sat in the chair beside the couch, making sure the other wouldn’t see the screen if and when she woke up. _If_ Wanda was going to figure out what Natasha had just learned at the compound, it wasn’t going to be because she got a glance at the old documents the older woman was about to be shifting through. 

She wasn’t expecting to find anything, really. If there was something to point towards the new development anywhere in these files, SHIELD probably would’ve found it years ago, or it would’ve been found when she dumped SHIELDs files online. It wasn’t likely there was a record of this anywhere, which would make explaining what was going on a lot harder. _‘Maybe I could reach out to...no,’_ Natasha thought, cutting off her own train of thought, _‘I’m not bringing them into this. I’ll figure it out.’_

So she spent the next few hours rereading the files, searching for hints. Anything that could point to an explanation that would satisfy her and Wanda both, should the younger girl find out. When Tony had first broken the news to Nat, she didn’t believe it, and she knew without a doubt Wanda wouldn’t either. Maybe a paper trail would help convince her they weren’t making it all up. 

_‘But what if she’s happy about it?’_ something in the back of Natasha’s mind wiggled its way into her thoughts, _‘What if it’s the type of news that would help her? What if she doesn’t try to disprove it?’_

“Natasha?” a tired voice said after a bit of time had passed, “You’re home.” 

“Yes, I am.” she answered, “And you woke up just in time. Go get ready for school.” 

“Where were you last night?” 

“I had something to take care of at the compound.” It wasn’t technically a lie, but even if Nat had to come up with some sort of lie to ease Wanda’s curiosity, she was willing to do it. 

“Was it Avengers related?” Wanda asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. 

“Why else would I be at the compound if it wasn’t?” 

Wanda slowly got up and started to walk to her room, but stopped and turned around, “You weren’t called to assemble for something were you?” 

“No. How did your dinner go last night?” she attempted to get the teen off the subject of what she herself had been doing. Her and May had planned to both say they couldn’t make it due to work - for Natasha, it just ended up being somewhat true. Nat had put money in Wanda’s backpack knowing she wouldn’t be there to pay but had fully intended on being able to pick her up afterwards before she had gotten the call from Tony. 

***

_“What do you want, Stark?” Natasha had answered as she was in the middle of confirming plans that night with May Parker, or really confirming the lack of plans._

_“I need you to come up to the compound.” Tony replied, “There’s something you need to see, well actually I think the right word would be know, but it seems wrong telling you over the phone.”_

_“Wanda’s busy until later tonight and I don’t want to go pick her up from school unless absolutely necessary, how important is this?”_

_“Don’t bring Wanda. Just...trust me, okay? You’ll want to hear this.”_

_“Okay fine. But if this is something stupid I swear to god-”_

_Tony cut her off before she could finish her threat, “Natasha, please.” The two words alone told her that he was being serious._

_“I’m on my way,” she said, hanging up the phone. By the time she managed to get to the compound, she had gotten a confirmation text from May saying she had told the two teens she had gotten called into work._

***

“It was fine,” Wanda answered Natasha, bringing her back from the memory, “We just went to this deli near his apartment. He asked me to the dance.” she had half mumbled, half whispered the last part, and Nat noticed the blush start to creep up on her face. 

“He asked you to the dance?” Nat repeated, getting a nod in response, “And did you say yes or are you going to leave me guessing?” 

The blush became more apparent on her face, “I said yes. I have to get ready for school…” Wanda now stammered, quickly making her way to her bedroom. Well, at least she wasn’t asking about Natasha’s whereabouts the night before anymore. As she waited for her to get ready, Nat once again thought back to the previous evening. 

***

_“Welcome back, Agent Romanoff,” FRIDAY greeted as Natasha walked through the door._

_“Where’s Tony?” she asked the AI, wanting to hurry and get back to the city. It wasn’t the shortest drive in the world, and traffic could make it so much worse, especially when actually obeying the driving laws._

_“Boss is currently busy. Should I inform him of your arrival?”_

_“Yes.” she sighed, He made her come all the way up here to not even be available when she actually got there? “Tell him I’m not going to wait all afternoon for him, I’ve got to get back to Queens before it gets too late.”_

_As she waited, she let Wanda know she wasn’t going to make it to dinner, adding on that she better not attempt to walk home. After the previous attempt that had been made at Wanda finding her way on her own, there was no way Natasha was going to be letting her walk home from anywhere._

_“Agent Romanoff,” FRIDAYS voice rang through sometime later as Natasha was about to leave, “Boss requests your presence in his lab.” The former spy made her way to the lab, ready to give Stark hell when she walked in._

_“So,” she started, “for starters, if you were planning on making me wait here all day, I should’ve brought Wanda. She can’t just stay there alone all night.”_

_Tony shook his head, “Trust me, it’s best she’s not here right now. I don’t need her losing control and blowing something up.”_

_“You’re being dramatic,” Nat sighed, “But please enlighten me on what the hell was so important I had to rush up here and then wait for you.”_

_“It’s about Wanda.”_

_“That doesn’t answer my question.”_

_Tony paused for a second before motioning to the screen behind him, “Well, I’ve figured out she has a living relative. I was just confirming it for about the fifth time.”_

***

“Okay, I’m ready,” Wanda announced as she walked out of her bedroom, much more composed than she had been when she entered it. 

Nat smiled at her, “So am I going to get to hear about how he asked you out?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before anybody guesses this - no, it's not Peter, lol. The story is Peter/Wanda and it's gonna stay that. 
> 
> Let me know what you think, I love reading your comments and theories!!! 
> 
> Also, my birthday is on Saturday so there might be a slightly delay before the next chapter but I'll get it up as soon as I can (:


	13. Chapter 13

After dropping Wanda off at school, Natasha decided it would be in her best interest to get at least an hour of sleep, seeing as she had stayed up the entire night before. She could operate just fine on little sleep, but didn’t see the point in depriving herself since she had the capability of taking a brief nap before continuing on her search through the old SHIELD files. 

By noon she was already awake again and had gotten ready for the day, flipping through the records like she had gotten a full night's sleep. It was tedious work, especially since she wasn’t fully aware of what exactly she was trying to find. A sentence someone forgot to erase somewhere? A small note that may have seemed meaningless up until now? Once again she thought that she was probably wasting her time doing this - if someone wanted this hidden, it was going to be harder than this to find, wouldn’t it? 

Sighing, Natasha closed out of yet another document and looked for the next one to look through. This is where she spotted something odd. She knew that detailed records had been put together, some containing events that she herself didn’t even remember. So how was it that there was over a year and a half that was missing any sort of records? The one she had just closed was from late 2000, and the next with the person’s name on it didn’t appear until halfway into 2002. There had to be some mistake; had they gotten deleted or moved somewhere else by accident? Unless it had been done purposefully by HYRDA or even SHIELD for some reason, then Natasha couldn’t imagine why there would be such a huge period of time completely empty of any of these records. 

Picking up her phone, she considered who she could call to possibly get an explanation for the missing files. Fury and Hill had no reason to even bother looking into it, and if they knew something about it to begin with they could just withhold the truth. There was really only one person who would have some knowledge on the files that she knew wouldn’t lie to her without her having to fight them for the truth. 

He answered almost immediately after Natasha had hit the call button, “Hello?”

“Clint,” she said, “Do you have a bit? I have some questions I need answered.” 

***

When Wanda had woken up, she sensed something was off with Nat but it was obvious the older woman didn’t want to talk about whatever it was. Only being half awake herself and knowing Natasha had likely been awake driving most of the night, Wanda decided not to press her about it at the moment. 

The school day went by relatively quickly, with nothing overly exciting happening. She once again noticed people sending her glances when the dance was mentioned - specifically, when it was mentioned that all proceeds would be going to the Sokovian charity (she also noticed Ned grin at Peter - apparently he already knew that Peter had asked her). When Mr. Harrington had asked about her decision to join the Decathlon team, Wanda realized she had never had the chance to even bring up the topic with Nat. 

“Oh um,” she had to explain, “I didn’t have the chance to talk with my mother about it yesterday. I can tell you my decision tomorrow, right?” 

“Of course.” 

At lunch, the subject had once again been brought up, except by Peter this time. Wanda had noticed that Ned was absent, which was different. Usually he was at least there for the very beginning of lunch, or both him and Peter would be gone. 

“So what did your mom say about AcaDec?” Peter asked, not seeming to find Ned’s absence to be off at all. 

“She didn’t get home until after I went to bed,” Wanda explained once more, “I didn’t get the chance to ask.” 

“Did she actually get called into work last night?” 

“Guess so.” Wanda shrugged, “Do you know where Ned is?” 

“Oh,” Peter seemed slightly caught off guard by the question and let out a small nervous laugh, “Last minute project stuff, I think?” 

Wanda thought back to the night before, how May and Natasha had left the two alone so Peter could have a chance to ask her to the dance, “So this isn’t some elaborate plan to ask me to something else?” she joked. 

“N-No!” Peter was quick to respond. He seemed to think for a minute before giving in, “He really does have to finish his project with MJ, but he also said he didn’t want to be the third wheel. He was joking but that’s what he said.” 

Now she frowned, “Why would he be a third wheel? Are we not all friends?” 

“We are but…he joked about us being a couple since I told him I was going to the dance with you.” 

“But that doesn’t mean he can’t still sit with us. Does the fact that you asked me to a dance mean that we’re a couple? I didn’t think it did.” Wanda thought back to Natasha’s joking _‘Am I going to get to hear about how he asked you out’_ comment that morning - she hadn’t thought anything of the wording then, but now it seemed that maybe it actually meant something. Going to a dance together didn’t mean you were a couple, did it? 

Peter’s face was slowly turning red, “No, not typically…” he answered her question, “I just...he had just been making a joke. That was all. He knows we’re all still friends.” It didn’t take having powers to realize that Peter was now uncomfortable with the conversation, so she decided not to press it any further, though now she couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

Even as lunch ended, she found herself thinking about it. Did Peter want them to be a couple? Did she want them to be a couple? Peter was kind, smart, caring, cute...Wanda’s thoughts quickly backpedaled. Had she just admitted that she found Peter cute? For the rest of English class, she found herself glancing over at him, as if trying to decide if she really did find him to be cute or not. She found herself wondering if _he_ thought that _she_ was cute. He did seem nervous half the time when they were talking, so maybe he did like her in some way. 

Wanda had never had to deal with anything like this before. She might have had crushes in the past, but she never had been on a date or considered that somebody might want to take her on a date. If anybody had ever wanted to, Pietro had probably scared them off being her protective ‘I’m-12-minutes-older’ brother. 

By the time the school day ended, Wanda realized that she hadn’t learned a single thing in the second half of the day. Well, not in class anyways. What she _did_ learn was the following: she did in fact think that Peter was cute, and she suddenly wanted him to ask her on a real date. She assumed that the dance didn’t count but now she was scared to ask if it did. Even as Peter waved goodbye to her outside the school building as he started to walk away, she found herself blushing. That was new. 

_‘Peter blushes around me a lot, I think...maybe he likes me too.’_ she thought, smiling at the possibility. 

*** 

“Clint,” Natasha had said when the archer answered his phone, “Do you have a bit? I have some questions I need answered.” 

“Sure,” Clint sounded confused, “What’s up?” 

“SHIELD had sent you to kill me. I’m assuming they had you research my past when they assigned you the mission?” 

“I mean...yeah, I guess. I had to familiarize myself with how you worked and what you might do, but you know that. We did that for most of our missions, didn’t we? Get what information we could so we weren’t going in blind.” 

“Was there any large gaps of time where there wasn’t anything on me?” 

“Huh?” Clint questioned, “What do you mean? Like...any point in which you went off the grid?” 

“Yes.” 

There was a bit of a silence as he thought, “Maybe? It’s been a while, Tasha. Why? Are you wondering how secretive you were on a past mission?” he joked. 

Natasha didn’t find it funny, “You know my memory of my pre-SHIELD missions isn’t the best, but they’re all noted here. The ones I remember, the ones I don’t. But there’s a gap from the end of the year 2000 to mid-2002. There’s literally nothing. Do you remember if there was when you had to study these?” 

“Mid-2002?” The confusion was still strong in his tone, “That’s only a few years before I was sent after you. I’m sure you were on their radar...are you sure you didn’t overlook something? Why are you looking through them in the first place?” a pause, “Actually, now that I think about it I do remember being told you had been off the grid for a while. Don’t remember exactly when it was, though. But again, why?” 

“Because something’s come up.” 

“Something bad?” Clint was expecting her to just say ‘yes’. If it had to do with her time with the Red Room, of course it was going to be bad. She more than likely wouldn’t ask for help dealing with it, she was just trying to confirm a timeline, right? He wasn’t prepared for the next words that left Natasha’s mouth. 

“Well, I guess we now know why I was off the grid during that time,” Natasha had said, “Apparently in 2001 I gave birth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *pause for dramatic effect* 
> 
> Let me know what you think!! How can this be possible?? What's going on?? 
> 
> Thank you for all the birthday wishes!! Also, I made a new tumblr for marvel stuff- @mcuscarletspider if you're interested


	14. Chapter 14

Clint was silent for a minute, “You gave birth?” he finally managed to say, “But I thought you were sterilized? Isn’t that impossible?” 

“That’s what I was trying to figure out when I saw that there was nothing about me during that time frame.” Natasha responded, “I don’t have any memory of ever being pregnant or giving birth, but it happened.” 

“How do you know?” 

“Because there’s a fifteen year old who’s DNA matched with mine.” 

“Again, how do you know that?” Clint asked, “Aren’t you living with Wanda while she attends high school now? Are you just randomly taking DNA samples from her classmates?” she knew it was a joke, that’s just how Clint was. Even in a serious situation he would try to find a way to lighten the mood.

There was no reason for her to try and hide the information from him at this point, “It was Wanda’s that matched with mine.” 

“Do I want to know how he got her DNA to begin with?” 

“Her blood was drawn when she first got to the compound. I guess Tony was just now going to see how the scepter altered her DNA when whatever system he was using registered that it matched with mine. I don’t have all the details, I was too busy trying to think about how the hell this was possible to ask for his full thought process or actions.” 

“Does she know?” 

“Of course not.” 

“When are you going to tell her?” Clint asked, “You are going to tell Wanda, aren’t you?” 

Even though he couldn’t see her, Nat shook her head, “I don’t know if telling her is the best idea. The whole reason we’re even in Queens to begin with was that Stark wanted to attempt to give her as much of a normal life as possible. She still thinks we’re here recruiting Spider-Man.” 

“What does that have to do with telling her?” 

“Being my daughter is the farthest thing from normal. It’ll turn her entire life upside down, Clint. What if she doesn’t even know that her parents weren’t actually her parents?” 

Clint was silent for a second, “What about her brother? They were twins, does that mean he’s also your kid, or were they not even related…?” 

“I don’t know. But if it’s the latter then it’s even more reason not to tell her. She’s still grieving Pietro, this would set her back.” 

“Nat, you have to tell her. It would be cruel not to. Wouldn’t living with her mother be more normal than living with a former assassin? Don’t you think Wanda would be happy to hear that she’s not completely alone?” 

“She’d be living with a former assassin regardless.” 

“But at least said assassin is her mother.” 

“That doesn’t make it any better, Barton.” both were silent for a minute before Natasha whispered, “I can’t be a mother, Clint. I don’t know what to do.”

“You’ve been acting as her mother these past couple weeks, haven’t you? Besides that one night, have you had any major issues?” 

Nat sighed, “Acting being the key word. It’s just a cover. That I can do, but if I tell her the truth then it becomes real. I’ll actually be responsible for taking care of a person other than myself, even outside of this fake mission Tony gave us.” 

“I’m gonna come to New York,” was Clint’s response, “Does this house you’re staying at have room for me as well? I’m starting to think this conversation shouldn’t be happening on a phone call.” 

“Clint I swear to god you better not be planning on telling her-” 

“Natasha,” he said, “Trust me, that’s not something she needs to hear from me. Or Tony. Or see it in some document somewhere. _When_ she finds out, it needs to be from you. And this isn’t something you should put off forever. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” with that, the line went dead. 

She put her phone down and put her head in her hands, letting her walls down knowing that nobody was there to see her in a moment of weakness as she tried to stop herself from crying. Since she had entered adulthood there was one thing that she knew as fact: she would never be able to have children, courtesy of the Red Room’s graduation ceremony. Yet here she was, faced with the fact that she had a teenage daughter. 

_‘What about her brother? They were twins…’_ Clint’s words rang through her head again, causing the tears to start flowing down Natasha’s face. Was Pietro also her child - was one of the only children she’d ever have gone?

***

Wanda noticed that Natasha was a few minutes later picking her up that day after school, but she didn’t say anything. There were a hundred reasons she could’ve been late, surely it had nothing to do with wherever the woman had been the previous night. 

What she really wanted to comment on was the redness around her eyes, but Nat seemed to want to pretend nothing was wrong so the teen let her, despite the fact that it looked like the woman had been crying for quite some time. Natasha didn’t seem like the type of person who liked to talk about her feelings, which Wanda understood. Sometimes there were things you didn’t want to talk about - but what had happened to actually make the Black Widow cry? What could’ve possibly been so bad? 

“So,” Wanda decided on saying, not bringing up her concerns for the other, “One of my teachers wants me to join the Academic Decathlon team. I participated when I went with Peter to his practice.” 

“Is it something you’d want to do?” Natasha asked in response. 

“I think I would, if I could. They meet after school sometimes and sometimes they have to travel, though. I’m not sure I could do that.” 

“Why not?” 

Wanda’s eyes went wide, “Wait, would you really let me join their team?” 

“Extracurriculars can be good for you. If you want to be part of the team, then yes, I’ll agree to it. Unless there’s a reason you don’t actually want to join and you’re looking to use me as an excuse as to why you can’t?” 

“I think I was mainly curious as to if I’d have to suddenly leave. I was never given an answer on how long I’ll be at the school.” 

“Don’t worry about that. If you want to join, then do.” Neither said anything after that, even after walking inside their home. Natasha seemed to busy herself with something on her computer, so Wanda decided to go ahead and finish up her homework for the day. She also texted Peter to let him know that she had gotten the go-ahead to accept the invitation for the AcaDec team. 

At some point Wanda fell asleep, the exhaustion of having stayed up the majority of the prior night then spending an entire day at school finally catching up to her. She felt that a lot had happened in the past twenty-four hours, so a nap was probably much needed. 

By the time Natasha went to get her for dinner, Wanda was fast asleep. When the teen didn’t respond to her knocking, Nat did have a brief moment of panic thinking back to the night where Wanda had run off. She knew that there was no reason for her to have run off this time, but the feeling of not knowing where Wanda was that night had been something she didn’t want to deal with again. 

Opening the door, there was a feeling of relief when she saw Wanda curled up in bed. “Wanda,” she said, trying to gently wake her up by shaking her shoulder, “Come on, get up.” 

All she got in response was an incoherent mumble and Wanda curling in further on herself, wanting to keep sleeping. 

“I’m not letting you skip dinner,” Nat tried, “And I’m going to take a wild guess and say you want to be awake when Clint gets here.” 

This got Wanda’s attention, “Clint?” she asked sleepily as she sat up, “He’s going to come here?”

“Yes.” 

“Why?” 

“Work related, don’t worry about it. But I’m guessing he also wants to check in on you.” 

The teen frowned, “Why can’t I know what work related thing it is? I thought I was also part of the Avengers.” 

Natasha shook her head, “You have to focus on what you’re currently doing. Not all things we do are as a full team.” _‘This has nothing to do with the Avengers,’_ is what she didn’t say, _‘And knowing Clint, it’s only a matter of time before you do know what all this is really about…’_

Wanda just groaned and fell back against her pillows, “You never tell me anything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, let me know what you think!!  
> Feel free to reach out to me on twitter @oceanicflights or tumblr @mcuscarletspider if ya want


	15. Chapter 15

Clint had ended up getting in much later than Wanda thought he would, meaning she was once again fast asleep before the archer knocked on the door and was let inside by Natasha. He had hardly been in the house for thirty seconds before cracking a joke. 

He had looked around and grinned, “Wow, look at you. Living a normal, domestic life in the city. I never thought I’d see the day.” 

“I’m only living here for Wanda. This wasn’t fully my idea.” 

“And you’re going to admit you went along with something Tony planned? Who are you and what have you done with Nata-” he shut up when Nat punched him in the shoulder, “Okay jeez, sorry. But you were quick to agree to this whole thing. I never got the full story as to why you did, I just know I was Tony’s backup plan if you said no.” 

“Because forcing her to move to Iowa would’ve gone wonderfully.” Nat rolled her eyes, “Besides, I also wanted her to be able to have somewhat of a normal teenage experience. I didn’t get to have that so at least I can help somebody else who had everything taken from them.” 

The two agents went to the main room to sit down, “So that’s why you agreed?” Clint asked, getting a nod in response. 

“Though I have to admit Stark could’ve gone about asking me better,” Nat laughed, “He walked into the room and told Wanda she was going on a mission before he even told me about any of this. When I tried to say she wasn’t going on a solo mission, he sent me a file he had compiled on this kid, Peter, who he had been looking at recruiting. The first page of it was a note to me that said something like ‘I’m sending her to school to get away from fighting for a while, so she can have something normal. I want you to go with her as her guardian’. So I played along, made sure that Wanda was actually okay with moving to Queens, and here we are.” 

“So you did agree to Tony’s plan, then. And Wanda still has no clue about any of this?” 

Nat shook her head, “She’s been asking questions about how long she’ll be at the school but hasn’t pressed it too hard. She’s also been amazing at controlling her powers for the most part - usually she only ends up using them in her sleep now. I do think she should get back into learning to control them better when she does use them, though.” 

“And she’s made friends with Peter?” 

“I’d say so. They’re going to a school dance together in the next couple weeks. She managed to befriend him on her first day at the school.” 

“Oh?” Clint raised an eyebrow, “A date? Do I have to give him the dad talk since she doesn’t have one here to do that? Does this make me her uncle?” 

“You are not allowed to threaten him.” 

“Aw,” he half whined half laughed, “But I have to get some practice in before Lila’s a teenager and starts dating.” 

“Not this time.” 

“My next visit then,” he said before turning more serious, “But...back to the reason I’m here. You have a daughter.” 

Natasha nodded, “Seems so.” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. Clint wasn’t going to have that, though. 

“How’re you handling this information? Be honest with me, Tasha. Don’t act like this isn’t a big deal, because it is.” 

For the second time that day, Nat let her walls down but this time was able to keep her tears at bay, “I don’t understand what’s going on and it scares me. How can I have no memory of having a child or...or having _children_? I don’t want to find out that Pietro wasn’t actually her brother, but at the same time finding out he’s also mine...I don’t know how to handle that.” 

Clint now nodded as a way to acknowledge what she had admitted to him, “Is Pietro the main reason you don’t want to tell her?” 

“There’s a lot of reasons. Pietro, possibly turning everything she’s known about her family upside down, the fact that it’s me…” she sighed, “Look, it’s late. We’ll talk about this when she’s at school tomorrow but I don’t want to get into it anymore right now.” 

“Nat-” 

“Please, Clint.” Natasha whispered, giving him a pleading look. 

“Alright, but we are talking about it tomorrow.” 

***

Clint and Natasha were both up before Wanda left her room the next morning. Clint had decided to make breakfast, smiling at the teen when she walked into the kitchen. 

“Hey Wanda,” he said, “I made pancakes. Thought you might like a real breakfast before school instead of whatever it is that Nat feeds you.” Clint joked, earning a smile from Wanda and something flung at him from Natasha who had been sitting at the table. 

“Thank you,” Wanda said as she took the plate handed to her, “It’s nice to see you again. Will _you_ tell me the work related thing that Natasha refuses to tell me for no reason?” 

“If she doesn’t want you to know then she probably has a reason,” was the answer she got, “But I will do my best to get her to tell you at least something related to it soon enough.” 

“Good luck, she doesn’t want to tell me anything!” 

Now Nat chimed in, “You know, ‘she’ is sitting right here and can hear you two. Now come on Wanda, you don’t have a lot of time to eat before we have to leave.” 

“Will Clint still be here after school?” 

“Yeah, I will be,” the man in question answered, “Nat needs my help with something so I’ll be hanging around for the next few days, and you can tell me all about your classes and all that. I wanna know your first impressions on American schools.” 

***

After dropping Wanda off at school, Natasha took her time getting back to the house, despite not living that far from the school at all. No amount of training she had could prepare her for the conversation Clint wanted to have - unless she could keep deflecting, which she knew she couldn’t. She had reached out to him and been honest about the situation, but now that he was here and wanting her to talk through her feelings she wanted to take it all back. 

Yet of course, when she got back to the house Clint was sitting in the main room waiting for her. “So,” he said, “Are you ready to talk about it now?” 

“Can I say no?” 

“You have to face it eventually, Tasha.” he waited for Nat to sit down before continuing, “Are you upset that you’re a mother? If you found out that Wanda’s mother was anybody else who was still alive, would you want to keep it from her?” 

“You think I don’t want to tell her because I don’t want to take responsibility?” 

“No, I think you want to be able to deny that you’re a mother because you keep telling yourself it’s impossible.” 

“Because it is!” Natasha all but yelled at him.

“You know what year she was born. Do you know what year they sterilized you?” 

Now she was silent, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of being right. From what she remembered, she was sterilized at eighteen, in 2002. Wanda was born in 2001. 

“Clint,” she whispered, “How am I supposed to tell her?” 

*** 

Wanda wasn’t sure why she was so happy when she got to school. Was it because of the breakfast Clint had made, or simply because she was happy to see a friendly, familiar face? Or was it knowing she was going to get to talk to Peter again today? Whatever the reason, nothing that day ruined her mood. 

At the end of the school day, after all four classes and lunch went by uneventfully, Wanda was sitting outside waiting to be picked up when Peter walked up to her. 

“Wanda, hey,” Peter said, smiling as he approached her. 

She smiled in return, “Hey,” she responded, though was confused as to why he was out here. Usually he had just walked home after school - or went out as Spider-Man, to her knowledge. He never waited in the front of the school to be picked up. 

“So I know this is kind of sudden and maybe random,” he began, fidgeting with his hands, “But I was thinking about what we were talking about the other day, and it didn’t seem right to ask over text, but would you wanna maybe hang out tomorrow? Like maybe...maybe like a date?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, I had to go out of town and wasn't able to finish the chapter beforehand! But now more information has come out, and Peter has asked Wanda out! 
> 
> Hopefully the next chapter won't take nearly as long (small disclaimer here if Peter seemed random at the end: we will see his lead-up to that question in the next chapter, don't worry) 
> 
> As always, let me know what you think and feel free to reach out to me on twitter @oceanicflights or tumblr @mcuscarletspider !


	16. Chapter 16

Following Wanda’s confusion about whether or not an invitation to the dance made them a couple or not, Peter couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility of becoming something more than friends. He knew he couldn’t lie to himself about having at least a slight crush on Wanda now, but did he see them being in a relationship? Did he have a chance at that? Maybe it wasn’t so unbelievable that he did, after all, she had accepted the offer to go to the dance with him after stating she hadn’t even planned on going. 

But would Wanda even want to be in a serious relationship right now? For all he knew, she hadn’t been in the states for all too long and wasn’t ready for anything beyond friendship. Yet, all she really had seemed concerned about was that Ned knew the three of them could all still hang out together. Would she be open to the idea? He didn’t want to go to May for advice on what he should do - not after her plan to get him to simply ask her to the dance - which really only left going to Ned for advice. So, the same day that his best friend had abandoned him and Wanda at lunch so they could have alone time, he went to text said friend for advice. 

_**Peter:** question _

_**Ned:** answer?_

_**Peter:** on a scale of 1 to 10, how dumb would it be to ask wanda out _

_**Ned:** have you not already?_

_**Peter:** no we’re just going to the dance but not as a couple or anything _

_**Peter:** but like I’ve only known her a few weeks is that weird ?_

_**Ned:** lol no _

_**Ned:** you seriously didn’t ask her out at the same time you asked her to the dance? _

_**Peter:** okay so like, i called it a date at the time, i think but idk if she heard me or what. I kinda mumbled it because she said she wasn’t going and I said what if you had a date and she was said huh so I asked if she wanted to go with me and she agreed saying that going with someone would be better than going alone _

_**Peter:** but then at lunch she seemed confused saying that going to a dance doesn’t make us a couple which yeah is true but i wonder if i asked her out on like, a non-school related date if she’d consider that us maybe starting a relationship _

_**Ned:** omg dude….just ask her out for ice cream or something then ask her to be your girlfriend while you’re there. Just like, text her real quick and see if she’s free tomorrow night _

_**Peter:** i dont wanna ask over text!!! Ill ask her tomorrow about saturday_

_**Ned:** if you really think that’s better then go for it_

***

_“Clint,” Natasha whispered, “How am I supposed to tell her?”_

“We’ll figure that out. Do you want to tell her while I’m still here?” the archer asked, happy that he got his friend to give in and admit that Wanda needed to know the truth, “Or should I find a reason to not be here?” 

Nat nodded, “Even if you’re not in the room, I think you should be in the house at the very least. Chances are good that she’s not going to want to be around me afterwards, so maybe be prepared to take her back to the tower or something for a few nights.” 

“I think you’re overexaggerating.” 

“She’s run away from me once, I don’t think it’s so crazy to think that she’ll do it again.” 

Clint didn’t give up trying to reason with her, “But the time Wanda did run, you two were arguing over something. This won’t be an argument. I’m not saying she won’t be shocked, but you can’t just assume the worst.” 

Natasha sighed, “You say that, but you’ve never been in a situation where you had to tell a kid that you’re their parent. We don’t even know if she knows she was adopted or not. And...maybe we should wait until we can find out about her brother as well. That’s going to be one of the first questions that she asks.” 

“Do we have a way of finding out if Pietro is also yours?” 

“Knowing Stark, I wouldn’t be too shocked if there is a tube of Pietro’s blood being kept in the compound. I’m sure he was planning on…” Nat stopped mid-sentence, her expression turning to one of extreme annoyance, “My fucking god...Stark probably already knows! I bet he put Pietro’s DNA into the system right after I left that day, if he didn’t do it before he even ran Wanda’s!” 

Now there was a tense silence for a second before Clint nodded, “I mean...probably. Do you think that him not mentioning Pietro is a good or bad thing?” 

“Depends on if him also being my son is good or bad, doesn’t it? And that isn’t an easy answer, either.” 

“What are reasons Tony might not have told you anything about him when he told you about Wanda?” Clint paused for a second before cracking a small grin, “Did you even give him a chance to get in one word about it?” 

Now Natasha didn’t speak for a moment, “...I had to leave because she was here alone. I didn’t get home until the middle of the night as is, I wasn’t trying to wait around.” 

“So maybe he just didn’t get a chance to tell you?” 

“He had plenty of time when he first told me about Wanda.” 

“Maybe he thought it was implied?” 

“I don’t know, but we’re not bringing it up with her until I find out what Stark knows. There’s no way he hasn’t run Pietro’s DNA at this point,” Nat said, standing back up and pulling out her phone before walking out of the room. 

*** 

On Friday, Peter hoped that he didn’t seem too awkward around Wanda. He thought he was doing a pretty good job at it, too. He was trying to decide when a good time to ask her to hang out on Saturday would be - he couldn’t exactly ask during class, and he hadn’t asked her the night before because surely it was better to ask in person, wasn’t it? That meant asking her over text was completely out of the question now. 

Peter wondered if he’d be able to ask her at lunch, deciding if it was just the two of them again that he would take that chance to casually bring it up. Maybe he could somehow start a conversation about favorite desserts and then when he found out what hers was, offer to buy some for her the next day? Yet of course as fate would have it, Ned and MJ both decided to sit at the lunch table again that afternoon. 

He was starting to wonder if simply texting her would be the way to go after all. It seemed slightly impersonal, but maybe it wasn’t that big of a deal. Following the last class of the day, he was about to leave campus when Ned stopped him. 

“So,” his best friend said, “What did she say?” 

“Huh?” 

“...Wanda? You did ask her out today, right? You said you were gonna.” 

“I haven’t had a chance.” 

“You have a chance right now, dude.” Ned smiled, “She waits out front for her mom to pick her up. She’s probably still there.” 

Peter nodded and glanced back at the building, “I dunno…” 

“You don’t want to ask her out?” 

“I do, but…” 

“No! No buts, go ask. Don’t keep putting it off.” 

He knew that Ned was right, so started walking around to the front of the school where he saw Wanda sitting. “Hey,” he said, walking up to her. 

“Hey,” Wanda smiled at him, and suddenly all his nervousness got ten times worse.

“So I know this is kind of sudden and maybe random,” he began, fidgeting with his hands, “But I was thinking about what we were talking about the other day, and it didn’t seem right to ask over text, but would you wanna maybe hang out tomorrow? Like maybe...maybe like a date?” 

“A date?” Wanda repeated, and Peter noted the surprised look on her face, followed by her blushing, “Like the dance is a date between friends, or…?” 

“No, like a...real date?” he stammered. “Between more than friends?” 

Her next words expelled the worry he had felt, making him suddenly feel light as air, “I think I would like that, yes,” she answered. 

*** 

The ride home from school that day, Wanda once again could tell something was seriously bothering Natasha. Like the day before, she decided not to press the matter knowing that Nat wasn’t likely to discuss whatever she was hiding. If she brought it up, all that would happen was she’d end up annoyed at the lack of information she was being given and Wanda wasn’t about to ruin her good mood on purpose. 

At home, Wanda greeted Clint but quickly disappeared into her room to make sure she had any weekend homework sorted out and finished before the next day. Pleased that she had less than she thought, she went back out to the main part of the house to rejoin Clint and Natasha when she heard the latter hush her friend. 

“Lower your voice!” Nat hissed in a low voice, “She could hear you!” 

Clint sighed, “You said you were going to tell her when you got your answers from Tony. You got them, so now it’s time to tell her.” 

“I just need time to process it.” 

“Natasha…” he trailed off, leaving the two adults in silence. That was until Wanda stepped up - finally fed up with all the secrets being kept around her. 

“Tell me what?” she asked, “What’s going on?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for Wanda to get some answers!! 
> 
> As always, please let me know what you think!! uwu


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short little chapter! I had the idea for this right after posting the last one, so yeah...here is whatever this is

_“Wanda, Pietro, come wash your hands!” Wanda heard her mother call out in Sokovian. She and her brother raced to the sink, eager to sit down for dinner. As Wanda went to sit down, she realized something was wrong. This had already happened before, years ago. No...that was impossible._

_Sitting down trying to hide her confusion, the family of four started their dinner. Suddenly, Wanda knew exactly what this night was. A bomb tore through the building, and she saw the hole appear in the floor. But something was different...her parents didn’t fall into it. They were safe on the other side, and so was Pietro._

_“Mama!” she called out, “Papa! Help!” all Wanda got in response was disgusted glares._

_“Don’t you dare call us that,” her mother spat at her, “You know better.” Before she could respond, Wanda was suddenly sucked into the ever-growing hole. She fell for what seemed like an entirety before suddenly finding herself kneeling on the ground, something hard clenched in her right hand._

_Wanda looked around, trying to make sense of where she was. Sokovia...she was back in Sokovia standing over Ultron, holding his vibranium heart in her hands. Before she knew it, she was falling again. The city was falling this time, though._

_Vision...Vision was going to come save her, wasn’t he? Where was he? No...no, Vision wasn’t going to come save her, he would’ve by now if he was._

“Wanda!” the voice was quiet, sounding as if someone was calling out to her from a decent distance away.

_She stood up and tried to see if anybody was coming to get her. They weren’t going to let her die, were they? Pietro was supposed to come and get her...no, no Pietro was dead. He wouldn’t be coming to her rescue this time. Suddenly, everything seemed to be going in slow motion as she saw the ground start to crack open. This was it - they were blowing up Novi Grad and she was still there. She hadn’t made it to a boat. She was going to die, just as Pietro had._

“WANDA!” the voice called out again, much louder this time. 

Wanda screamed as she woke up and instantly started sobbing. Reaching out, she expected to find Natasha sitting next to her, being the one that had woken her up from her nightmare. But the person who pulled her into the arms was most definitely not Natasha. 

“C...Clint?” she managed between sobs, “Where’s Natasha?” 

Clint looked slightly confused at first, “We’re at the tower, sweetie.” he answered, “Nat’s back at the house in Queens. Remember?” 

Now it was Wanda’s turn to be confused, looking at her surroundings as her tears started to subside. Surely enough, she recognized the room she was in as the one she had stayed at her first week going to Midtown. But when had she gotten there, and why wasn’t Nat with her? 

“No…” Wanda said, sniffling, “When did I get here? I...I want Natasha…can I go back to the house, please?”

“You don’t remember what happened at all?” 

This made her eyes widen, “I didn’t hurt her did I?”

“Not in the way you’re probably thinking, no.” 

“Can we go see her?” 

“Sweetie, it’s nearly three in the morning. You need to rest.” Clint shook his head, “I can take you back to Queens at a more normal hour.” 

“I won’t be able to rest anymore tonight,” she whispered, “Not if those are the dreams that are waiting for me.” 

Clint seemed to consider this for a second, debating if taking Wanda back to Queens was really the best option at the moment. Did she really not remember all that had happened only a few hours before? Was it a bad sign that she didn’t remember? At the same time, he knew that Natasha would be sitting wide awake somewhere in that house blaming herself for everything that had been said. Maybe it was best the two of them were able to talk it out, but surely not when Wanda had just woken up from what seemed to be a horrible nightmare. Or maybe that was the perfect time. 

“Okay,” he finally said, “But before we leave here I need to know exactly what you remember happening last night.” 

***

Natasha sat wide awake on her bed, going between staring at the floor and laying down to stare at the ceiling, only to sit back up and move her gaze back down again. She hadn’t wanted to tell Wanda anything until she had gotten more information, yet Clint had managed to convince her it would be best to tell the teen everything sooner rather than later. She had briefly agreed with him, but then when it came time to find out how to break the news she realized there was no good way to go about it. 

Out of all the possible questions that Wanda could possibly have, she felt there was only one that she could really answer with 100% certainty: yes, I am really your mother. 

_‘Do I know who your father is? No. Do I remember your birth? No. How did you end up in Sokovia? I don’t know. What do I know? Oh, I know that your twin brother-’_ she shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. In the end, she knew Wanda would react badly to hearing the news, but it still hurt nonetheless. Everything had spiraled, and now her child was staying with Clint at the tower because of it all. 

“I knew telling her was a mistake,” Nat said to nobody, “Who the hell would hear that kind of news and be happy about it!” 

She couldn’t help but blame herself for the way everything went down. In retrospect, talking about it with Clint in the main room of the house had been a mistake, even if they both thought that Wanda was in her room doing schoolwork. Of course her best friend was again demanding that she tell Wanda the entire truth that evening, but Nat couldn’t wrap her head around the bits of information she had gotten from Stark earlier in the day. It had been a lot to take in, even if some of the information had come days apart. 

All she had wanted was more time to think about it, that’s all she was trying to tell Clint when Wanda had walked in, obviously overhearing them. Every other time that the teen had heard something, or even just asked questions randomly, Nat had always been able to brush her off and say it wasn’t important; it wasn’t any of her business, she didn’t need to worry about it. Yet this time somebody else was there, and of course he wasn’t going to let it slide. 

Suddenly, it had felt like Natasha had forgotten everything she had ever been taught and practiced since she was a child. There was no lying her way out of this one, no clever way to get around the truth. And of course it was all her fault - she had been the one to reach out to Clint, to let him come over. Had he not been there, nothing would have happened to prompt Wanda to start demanding the answers she had been denied before. She wasn’t mad at Clint though, not at all, just at herself. This was the type of situation she was supposed to be able to get herself out of, wasn’t it? 

These were all the thoughts running through Natasha’s head when her phone went off, managing to snap her partly out of her haze. 

_‘Hey,’_ Clint had texted, _‘Wanda had a bad night and keeps asking for you. We’re coming back, but she doesn’t seem to remember what happened. It’s going to be best coming from you, I think, so go ahead and mentally prepare for that.’_

Well, great. Now she gets to live it all again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...I wonder what happened? I hope you enjoyed this slightly shorter chapter, I just had the idea to first introduce what happened AFTER Wanda finds out, without immediately giving away exactly how she reacted to the news.   
> (Don't worry, Wanda hasn't missed her date with Peter) 
> 
> As always, let me know what you think!


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter actually takes place before the last chapter. This is what happened the night that Nat tells Wanda

“Tell me what?” Wanda asked, “What’s going on?” Neither adult said anything, the only movement being Clint nudging Natasha as if to get her to start talking. 

“Can you come sit down, Wanda?” Clint finally said when the other refused to talk, “Natasha has something she needs to tell you.” 

The teen walked over and sat down in an armchair across from the others, “Is it the work thing that keeps coming up? Why you were gone that night and why Clint’s here?” she asked, noting that Nat was looking anywhere but at her, “Is it really that bad?” 

“It’s not bad, no,” Clint was still the one to answer, “But it is unexpected and has taken all of us by surprise.” 

Beside him, Natasha sighed before finally beginning to address the younger girl, “Wanda…” she started, trying to figure out the best course of action, “Did you...did you know that you and Pietro were adopted?” 

“Yes,” she answered after a few seconds, looking confused, “We always knew. But our parents adopted us when we were babies, and to us they were always our real parents. We didn’t define it by blood relation. Was that the big secret?” 

“Do you know what happened to your...biological parents?” 

“We were told our birth mother died after giving birth. That’s all we ever knew, and we didn’t bother to ask more. We were young and I don’t think we ever thought too much of it, but then we supposed all records of our adoption would have been destroyed somewhere along the way during the war. Many buildings went up in flames and records were lost.” 

Natasha went quiet again, and Wanda’s mind was racing. Why would she be asking these questions? 

“Wanda,” she eventually whispered, barely audible, “Your mother didn’t die. I don’t know about your father, but your mother is very much still alive.” 

It was Wanda’s turn to be at a loss for words now. Her parents had told her and Pietro that their mother was dead, why would they lie? Her mind was spiralling, trying to comprehend what Natasha had just told her - Natasha had to be lying. This was a test of some sort, right? 

“No,” Wanda said, clenching her fists, “My parents said that she died. They would not lie to us. I do not believe you.” But what if it was true? What if her mother simply hadn’t wanted to care for two children, so she gave them up? Were her parents lying to avoid hurting Wanda and Pietro, telling them they weren’t wanted? It seemed like a worst case scenario, but she couldn’t be sure now. 

“Your DNA matched with someone else’s in our system when Tony put it in,” Nat tried to explain, “That’s why he called me to the compound that night. He thought I needed to hear it in person, and he showed me the results. I didn’t think it was true either at first, so I tried to look into it more, and now I think it is true. I just found out that Pietro’s also matched with the same person, as we suspected it would, and I wanted time to process that information before I had to tell you all this.” now that it was partly out, she didn’t feel the need to try and hide anything, “When I called Clint to get his help, he decided it would be best if he came down to help as this is...well, shocking to say the least.” 

“Who is it?” Wanda asked, looking straight at Natasha who was still somewhat trying to avoid her gaze, “Someone in Stark’s system, you said? So they work for Stark?” she could feel her heart rate rising, feel the anger start to build inside her. If her biological mother was alive and worked under Stark, was it possible she had something to do with the bombing that took her parents away from her and Pietro? Was it some cruel act to try and get them back? 

“They don’t exactly work for him, no.” the older woman answered, “They occasionally work together, but she doesn’t work for him.” 

“Who is it?” 

More silence. The teen looked back and forth between Nat and Clint, waiting for one of them to finally just tell her. There was no way anybody was going to leave this room before she at least had a name. 

“Tell me!” Wanda nearly screamed, “If she’s really out there, I want to meet her.” 

“You already have,” Clint spoke now, “You’ve been living with her.” 

“...this is a joke, right?” Wanda said after a more tense silence started to blanket the room, “Very funny. How long have you two been planning this?” 

“He’s telling the truth,” Nat whispered, “I’m your mother. I didn’t know...I promise I didn’t know until Tony showed me the DNA results.” 

“You didn’t know you had children?” 

“My memories before joining SHIELD are not the best. They were messed with.” 

Wanda’s eyes narrowed as she stared at Natasha, “You can’t have children, though.” she said, “I saw inside your head. They took that from you, did they not?” 

“Yes, they sterilized me,” a pause, “But that was in 2002. You and your brother were born in 2001. I would’ve been 17 at the time.” 

“Stop lying to me!” she yelled back, no longer trying to keep her emotions in check knowing that her powers could start acting up now at any second, “You can’t have children so you’ve made this all up to pretend that you have your own!” 

“Wanda-” Clint started, but she didn’t give him time to even try to reason with her. 

“No,” she cut him off, “No...you’re not my mother. You pretend to be while I’m going to school, that is it. That’s...that is it.” she stood up, no longer wanting to be in the same room as them as her anger and confusion continued to grow, “I need to go for a walk.”

“Maybe you should sit back down,” Clint said, attempting to calm her down, “Your eyes are glowing. I know this is unexpected, but…” 

“It’s not unexpected, it’s not true!” Wanda screamed, followed by the noise of something breaking. Looking over, she saw that she had accidentally sent a few glasses flying into a wall where they shattered. “I want to leave. I don’t want to be here.” she glanced down at her hands which were still glowing red, and took a deep breath before walking towards the door. 

“Wanda,” Nat now tried to reason, getting up to follow her daughter and going to put a hand on her shoulder. 

“Don’t touch me!” Wanda said, still with a raised voice and she slapped Nat’s hand away, “You are not my mother and never will be. I know you always lie to get what you want, but I won’t let you do it to me. My mother, both my birth one and the one who actually raised me, are dead. You are neither of those people. For once, stop trying to be someone who you are not.” 

Natasha stood slightly in shock, watching as the other walked out of the house and slammed the door. Wanda knew bits and pieces of her past, she had opened up a bit to the girl to help her heal following Sokovia, but she had never imagined that would end up getting used against her in any way. Then again, she never really saw any of this coming. 

“Clint,” she said, turning back to look at her partner, “I told you she wouldn’t react well! I told you she would run!” 

“I will admit that we maybe didn’t handle that in the best way possible.” he said, also standing up now, “But she needed to know.” 

“She didn’t believe us. I wonder who said that would happen? Oh right, me. And now who has to deal with the fact that her child has run away for the second time now? Also me. Please go find her before she accidentally blows something up with her powers, please? I would go but seeing as she obviously doesn’t want to deal with me that might just make it worse.” 

Clint nodded, “I’m sorry, Tasha…” he said before also walking out the door, closing it much lighter than the previous person to leave had. It didn’t take him a long time to locate the girl - she hadn’t gone too far, having only walked to a park not extremely far from the house. Wasn’t this where she had gone when she had run away before? He vaguely remembered Tasha saying something about her going to a park. 

Sitting down on the swing next to her, neither said anything at first. He noticed she was crying, and all the red magic that had been around her when she had first left the house was gone. 

“Wanda,” he said after a minute, “You know, running out of the house isn’t the best thing to do when you’re upset with Nat.” 

“I didn’t want to see her.” 

“I understand, but you could get hurt when you just wander around aimlessly. I know you used to live on the streets, but this is a different place than what you knew.” 

“Everything now is different than what I knew,” she whispered, “Even my mother being dead. That seems like the one thing that would never change, yet it has.” another pause, “I don’t want to see her. I won’t go back there tonight if she’s there.” 

He thought back to what Natasha had said earlier, about him needing to be prepared to take Wanda to the tower for a few nights. Maybe that wasn’t a bad idea if she needed time to calm down, “Okay. We’ll go to the tower tonight then,” he suggested, “You and me.” 

“That I will do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! 
> 
> We now know what happened between Wanda and Nat when Wanda found out, now we get to wonder if/how they'll be able to talk it out (and of course, there's still Wanda's date coming up)


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slightly longer chapter woooo!

Wanda was extremely confused and a little frightened, but she was trying her best not to show it. After Clint had woken her up from her nightmare, she wasn’t sure what was going on in the slightest. She now remembered walking into the living room at the house in Queens and asking Clint and Natasha what was going on when she heard them talking, but everything after that was a blur. 

She didn’t remember what they had told her, but apparently she didn’t react well to whatever it was. Why else would she have been taken from the house...unless it was just that Natasha didn’t want to look after her anymore? Could that be it? Natasha was tired of babysitting her, or had been told something more important needed her attention? 

“Clint?” Wanda asked as they drove, breaking the silence they had been in. 

“Yeah?” 

“Is Natasha upset with me? Did we get into another argument?” 

He paused, “She’s not upset with you, no. And it wasn’t really an argument, but she needs to be the one to sit down with you and talk. But Wanda…” he paused once more to consider his words before finishing, “When she tells you, please try and stay calm?” 

His words hit her like a truck. Try to stay calm, and his earlier answer of ‘you didn’t hurt her in the way you’re thinking’. 

“...how bad did I injure her?” she whispered, feeling like she’s connected all the dots, “Bad enough to where she doesn’t want to see me? You had to take me away from her so I wouldn’t do it again?” 

“Wanda, no…” Clint sighed, “You didn’t physically hurt her, I promise. A lot happened last night and it was hard on both of you. I think she’ll be glad that you’re back, but it is a bit concerning that you don’t remember anything.” 

“Why was I at the tower? Why did I have to leave the house?” 

“You left the house by choice. I suggested we go to the tower and you agreed.” 

“But why did I leave?” 

“Let Natasha tell you, please.” 

The rest of the drive was in silence, Wanda doing her best to remember what had apparently led her to running out of the house. Did she have a good reason to react that way? What information could possibly be so bad that she had to actually leave Natasha? She trusted Natasha more than anyone else - she felt they had grown close over the past few weeks, and even before the mission had started they had a good relationship. She got along with Clint, yes, but he wasn’t around like Nat was. 

When they finally pulled up to the house, Wanda saw that the living room light was on. Had Clint woken Nat up to tell her they’d be coming back, or had Nat been awake the entire night? Regardless of what had gone down between them, Wanda figured that the latter was probably the more likely choice. If Natasha was upset about something, then she wouldn’t have gone to sleep, and Wanda knew the former spy could operate on very small amounts of sleep to begin with. 

Part of her was desperate to run in and hug her, but part of her was also terrified that Nat might push her away if she did that. The older woman wasn’t really a huge fan of physical affection, yet she had never had an issue with hugging Wanda before. Maybe it would be okay? After all, she had just made Clint drive all the way out here so she could see Natasha. Despite all the thoughts she had on the drive over, her nightmare was still in the front of her mind and she wanted comfort. 

As soon as she stepped through the door, Wanda couldn’t help herself. She ran for the main room and nearly threw herself at her guardian and started sobbing all over again, as she had when she had first woken up. Wanda clung to Natasha, burying her face in the woman’s shirt. 

Natasha responded hesitantly, wrapping her arms around her daughter and pulling her close. “Shh…” she whispered, “It’s okay. What happened? Clint said you had a bad dream?” 

“My parents let me die, or at least didn’t try to save me after the bombing. I started falling and...and then I was back in Sokovia, and nobody came to save me.” Wanda responded, talking between sobs, “And I woke up and you weren’t there and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know what happened. You aren’t upset with me, are you? Clint said you weren’t, but…” 

“Why would I be upset with you?” 

“I don’t know...I just...for a bit I thought you were tired of having to watch me. I’m sure you could be doing much more productive things with your time…” 

“Wanda...no.” Nat said, “You asked about what was going on and...I think you just needed time to think it through. You don’t remember what I told you?” 

“No…”

She sighed, “We were talking about your biological mother.” 

Wanda, though her face was still hidden, put on a look of confusion as she had the first time the topic had come up, “My biological mother? She died after giving birth and we were adopted quickly after. Why would that have upset me so much? I’ve always known this.” 

“You were upset because…” Nat paused, preparing for Wanda to push away from her and start yelling once again, “Your mother is alive. We told you what we knew, including who she is, and you didn’t want to believe it. We don’t have much information on how it happened, I’m sorry.” 

This rendered the girl quiet, taking in the information for the second time. “I wanted to be away from you because you didn’t know how to explain how my mother was still alive? I...how did you figure it out? Did she...did she find me or something? Why would...why would my parents lie about my biological mother being alive?” 

“I don’t think they did, but I can’t be sure.” it was odd, Wanda was taking everything much better this time. Was it because she was tired, or still so disturbed by her dream that it wasn’t processing the same way? “You left because...because we found out that back in 2001 I gave birth to twins. You and your brother.” 

“...what?” she whispered after another silence, “That...how? How is that possible? You didn’t know?” 

Clint was standing in the doorway, almost as if watching and preparing for Wanda to suddenly get angry and attack. When they had this conversation just a few hours earlier, that wasn’t really out of the question. But now...now she didn’t seem angry. She just sounded confused and a little...sad? 

“My memories before joining SHIELD aren’t the best. I tried to tell you, but you didn’t want to hear my explanation. The place where I was trained, and where I was later sterilized, messed with my memories. Your birth being one of them.” 

“Did the place give me directly to my parents, or was my adoption real?” 

“What?” 

“I wonder if my adoption was real. If it was a real agency? There are no records, Pietro and I always thought they just got destroyed.” Wanda explained. This was a thought that hadn’t occurred to either Clint or Natasha. 

“I read that it happened in a book once,” Wanda continued on, “Or maybe heard it on the television? I don’t remember, but it was a fictional crime story and women were forced to give birth before their babies were given away to adoption places or something. I think the mom’s were always killed after, though. I don’t remember the motive for any of it. I think...I think the people wanted sons and the daughters they gave up? It was just a story, but...” 

“What kind of books are you reading?” Clint mumbled before speaking clearly, “I hate to say this, but that’s a valid question. Do you think it’s possible that the Red Room was trying to...for lack of a better term, breed you to give them more soldiers?” 

“Then how would they have ended up in Sokovia?” Natasha questioned, holding Wanda a bit closer, “Why give them up and wipe my memory?” 

“Because you had a son. Maybe they only wanted girls.” 

Everyone went silent, the only sound being Wanda’s continued sniffling. She wasn’t angry this time, which was a shock, but she was continuously crying. Maybe this was her way of processing everything - this was her way of beginning to accept it. But why had she forgotten it to begin with? That was still concerning Natasha more than anything. Surely it hadn’t been so traumatic to find out that her brain was trying to repress the information. 

“If they only wanted girls,” Wanda eventually said, “Why give me up?” 

“To not separate twins,” Natasha whispered to herself more than to her daughter, “I bet there was another set of twins they did separate...I wonder if they watched you grow up to see if separating twins had any effect versus keeping them together.” 

Now Wanda jerked away, “Are they still watching me?” she asked, eyes wide, “Have they been this entire time? Are we in danger?” 

“No, no...I took down the Red Room years ago. Trust me, you’re safe.” 

Wanda looked down at her hands, “I yelled at you. I told you that you were lying about being my mother because you were desperate to have a child. I...broke something, didn’t I? Before I walked out?” 

Both adults stared at her before Clint spoke, “You remember what you said to her, but not what she said to you?” 

“I...I vaguely remember.” Wanda admitted, “It’s more clear now. I’m sorry…I really didn’t remember when I first woke up. I didn’t want Natasha to yell at me for leaving when we got here...” 

Nat sighed again, “Okay, you know what? It’s late, or early depending on how you want to look at it. You need sleep. Honestly, we all probably do. We’ll talk about this more later.” 

“...I don’t want to be alone…” the teen admitted hesitantly, “I...could I sleep in your room? Or I can stay in mine if you really are upset with me now...” 

“You can stay with me, yes.” 

*** 

Wanda wasn’t sure what time it was when her phone buzzing woke her up, and she didn’t want to bother looking at her phone to figure it out. Who would be trying to contact her, anyways? Both Clint and Natasha were in the same house as her (she noticed that despite the fact she had slept in Nat’s room that morning, the woman was no longer there). 

Snuggling back into the blankets, she suddenly remembered that Peter also had her number, and that she had agreed to go on a date with him that day. Now quickly reaching for her phone, she saw the few texts that Peter had sent over the last few hours trying to figure out if and when she would be good to meet up that day. 

She quickly responded, apologizing for the late response and saying she’d let him know about a time. Now, Wanda nearly jumped out of bed, suddenly wide awake, and went off to find Natasha. Her mother. She paused at the door, wondering if Nat would even let her leave the house today after her outburst the previous evening. 

She knew she reacted badly at first. She knew she shouldn’t have let her powers get the best of her and lash out. She knew that running out was not the right way to deal with finding out that her biological mother was the woman who had been looking after her since she first came to America. When she had woken up from her dream, Wanda honestly hadn’t really remembered what had happened in her half-awake, distressed state. It all came back to her on the drive back from Manhattan, after the brief talk with Clint. 

And instead of admitting that she remembered, she decided to pretend she hadn’t to avoid getting grounded. Yeah, she could have handled the entire situation a lot better than she had. 

“Nat?” she called out, finally leaving the room. Was she supposed to call her ‘mom’ even in private now? She was already doing it when around others for the mission. 

She found Natasha sitting at the table drinking coffee. The redhead looked up at her and raised an eyebrow, “I was expecting you to sleep a bit longer,” she said. 

“I uh,” Wanda hesitated, slightly nervous to ask her question. She felt there was a huge chance Natasha was going to say no, but she really did want to go on her date. Of course everything had to happen when it did - maybe she should just tell Peter today isn’t a good day. All things considered, it really wasn’t. 

“Is everything alright?” Nat asked, a slight look of concern on her face. 

“Would it be okay if I went out for a bit tonight?” Wanda finally blurted out, “I have a date.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things: 
> 
> Firstly, my senior year of undergrad has started so updates might start getting a tad bit slower. Also, yes, the fictional crime Wanda talked about was really the plot of something I watched years ago, lol. 
> 
> Story wise: I'll probably be updating the description and tags soon, but at this point you all know what the story is about...so yeah. And Peter will finally show up again next chapter! Also, we'll find out about everything involving Wanda's birth and all that at some point, remember everything they're talking about involving "separating twins" and all that is just speculation. 
> 
> Feel free to scream at me in the comments and on tumblr @mcuscarletspider ! Let me know your thoughts, theories, anything!!!


	20. Chapter 20

Natasha looked at her daughter for a second before speaking, “You what?” 

“I have a date,” Wanda said again, “Peter asked me out on one yesterday and then everything happened and I never got the chance to ask you if I could go or even mention it...but I had said yes to him. You haven’t grounded me for what I did last night, so I was wondering if it would be okay?” 

“I never got the chance to ground you,” Nat used the girl's words against her, “But I will let you go. On one condition; I want to know where you are. I want you home by a certain time too, you can’t stay out late. All your usual rules still apply, so...as much as you might want to talk about what a crazy night and morning you had, you can’t. I’m sorry. As far as Peter knows, there was never a question as to who your mother was.” 

Wanda now had a huge smile on her face, “I can go? Really?” she asked with a hint of excitement in her voice. She could deal with the rules, but she was honestly expecting Natasha to tell her no. 

Natasha was glad to see the other smile after the horrible night they both had, after Wanda’s tantrum and then fear when she had come home. “Yes,” she said, “I’m not going to make you miss your first real date.” 

Still grinning, Wanda thanked her mother and then quickly made her way back to her room, glancing at the time and seeing it was already almost three in the afternoon. She texted Peter telling him to pick a time, saying she was free for the rest of the day. She briefly wondered if it would’ve been better to stay at home and reschedule, to continue to talk things out with Nat or maybe actually spend time with Clint while he was in town. She shook these thoughts off - as Natasha had said, it was her first real date, and she didn’t want to have to cancel it. 

Peter responded saying he would be there to pick her up at 4:30, if that worked for her. Sending a confirmation that it was in fact okay, Wanda turned to her closet, letting all her thoughts focus on what she was going to wear that evening. 

*** 

Clint made his way to the kitchen not long after Wanda had run back down the hallway, glancing at the teen’s door as he walked out. “Did I hear Wanda out here?” he asked. 

“Yeah, apparently she has a date tonight.” Tasha responded nonchalantly, taking another sip of her coffee and then adding with a bit of sarcasm, “She didn’t get the chance to mention it last night, for some reason.” 

“You’re letting her go?” 

“I don’t want to give her any other reason to get upset with me. It’s a miracle as is that she forgave us so quickly, I’m not going to push our luck there. Besides, she knows the rules and if she breaks them, then she won’t be going out again anytime soon.” 

Clint looked somewhat surprised, “So you’re not grounding her for what happened yesterday, then?” 

“I need to decide what to do about that. Clearly, grounding her last time she ran out didn’t stop her from doing it again. Besides...I think we both knew that there was a good chance she wasn’t going to react well. It was shocking news, and in the end she calmed down and came back home.”

“She hasn’t apologized for what she said to you.” 

“Does she need to?” 

“Really?”

Natasha looked over at her best friend, “You know I don’t know anything about being a parent. She spoke out in anger, but she calmed down. Do I need to demand an apology, even if I know she didn’t mean it?”

“I don’t think she should have it in her mind that it’s okay to say things like that.” Clint answered, “She needs to know that her words can hurt other people's feelings, that she will have to sometimes apologize for her words. Also, that she can’t just lie about what she does and doesn’t remember. I was honestly concerned about that before she admitted she was faking.” 

“I’ll talk to her after her date, then. She seemed really excited and I don’t want to ruin that right now. I want her to be able to enjoy her night and have some to be happy about.” 

“Other than finding out her mother is alive?” he joked at first before turning somewhat serious again, “That works, though. So...should we continue down the rabbit hole that is how did her and her brother end up in Sokovia in the first place?” 

“We’ll have to at some point.” 

“Then let’s see if we can find anything else out about anything going on with the Red Room during the time surrounding your mystery pregnancy, shall we?” 

*** 

On Friday night, Peter was slightly freaking out. He had actually asked Wanda out on an actual date, and she had agreed. They were actually going to be going on a date. The girl who at first glance he thought he didn’t even have a chance at being friends with had agreed to go out with him. 

Who would’ve seen that coming? 

May was ecstatic when she found out. “I knew you didn’t have anything to worry about!” she exclaimed, “Of course she said yes! Where are you taking her?” 

“I don’t know yet, I didn’t think that far ahead…” 

His aunt thought for a second, “Okay, I know you two have had dinner together here, but maybe actually take her to a restaurant this time, and then you could find something to do after. Maybe find somewhere to get a cheap dessert or find somewhere safe to just walk and talk. I’ll give you a bit of money to help cover it.” 

“You don’t have to do that.” Peter said, “I’ve saved up a bit, I think I’ll be able to afford dinner. It doesn’t have to be somewhere like...fancy, right?” 

“Oh come on, let me help. And no, I don’t think it needs to be anything fancy, especially because you’re only fifteen. But don’t go to the cheapest place just to save money, either. Do you know her favorite food?” 

“No…” 

“Maybe you could get Thai like we did that one night with her and her mom? Or you could go get pizza somewhere. That’s a pretty normal thing to do for a date.” 

“I’ll think of something.” Peter smiled, grateful that his aunt was so enthusiastic and ready to help. It was a little annoying, but he appreciated the gesture nonetheless. 

That night, he hadn’t heard from Wanda at all. Peter thought this was a little strange, they usually texted every night now. He tried not to think too much into it, though. Maybe she was busy, or had gone to bed early. He vaguely remembered her saying something about an uncle or someone coming into town to visit, maybe she was spending time with whoever that was. 

Just because she wasn’t texting him didn’t mean she had suddenly changed her mind about going out with him, or even being his friend...did it? No, no that wasn’t it at all. It was crazy to even think that. 

By Saturday morning, he still hadn’t heard from her. No big deal. Peter tried texting her first, to find out what time she might like to meet up later that day, and still heard nothing back. Now he was getting slightly worried again - maybe she really had changed her mind and didn’t know how to tell him, so she was avoiding talking to him all together. 

He was about to give up and accept defeat when his phone finally lit up with a notification from her, apologizing and saying she had a rough night and had slept in. Seeing as it was well into the afternoon, he figured that was a bit of an understatement. Should he ask about what happened? Make sure she’s okay? 

Peter was about to offer to reschedule if she needed to rest when he got a new notification from Wanda, saying that any time would work. Grinning and deciding to just go with it, he erased his previous message and asked if it would be okay if he picked her up in an hour and a half. 

As he was getting ready, he glanced up at the place in the ceiling where he hid his hand made Spider-Man suit. 

_‘I wonder if I should tell her I’m Spider-Man,’_ he thought, thinking back to the night she had asked about the hero, and then the time that he had approached her in his suit. The night he had seen her eyes glow red...no, the night he had _imagined_ her eyes glowing red. _‘Maybe I’ll see how tonight goes first.’_ Peter decided, looking at the clock one last time before leaving to head over to Wanda’s house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, let me know what you think! (:


	21. Chapter 21

Peter was at Wanda’s house right at 4:30, knocking on the door and rocking back and forth on his feet as he waited for an answer. He was expecting Wanda to open the door, or maybe even her mother, but not the man who did. 

“You must be Peter,” he said with a smile, “Wanda’s not quite ready yet, come on in. She should only be another minute or so.” Peter didn’t know what else to do other than nod and step inside, awkwardly standing next to the door. He looked at the person who had opened the door again, feeling as if he had seen the man before. Surely he hadn’t though, right? 

Before he could try and attempt to place where he could’ve possibly seen him, Peter heard Wanda’s mom call out, “Remember, I want you in this house by 8:30.” followed by Wanda stepping into view. 

He wasn’t sure who smiled at who first, but the two teens exchanged smiles before Wanda spoke, “I’m to be home by 8:30, as you probably heard.” 

“I’ll make sure of it.” he said, hoping it was the correct thing to say, especially in front of whoever this other person was. He had never been given a name. 

“You better,” the man spoke, “I’m sure Nat would kill you if you didn’t.” he laughed as Peter suddenly looked somewhat confused. Wanda shot the man a look before practically pushing Peter back out the door. 

They started walking away from the house before Wanda said anything, “I’m sorry about him. I didn’t know he’d answer the door.” 

“Who was that? And the Nat that he mentioned?” 

“My uncle,” she said after a pause, “And Nat is my mother, Natasha. I thought you knew that. I promise he was just joking though, she won’t actually kill you.” 

“I didn’t think she would,” he let out a laugh, “Guess I’m just not that good with names. Though I haven’t really heard hers before, I don’t think. But anyways...you look nice.” Peter gave her another smile, realizing that this date was already off to a weird start. 

Wanda was wearing a plain dark blue dress with a gray cardigan (not that Peter noticed the specifics of what she was wearing, he had just noticed she dressed up a bit more than he had ever seen her do at school), and had let her hair fall naturally. Really, she had ended up not putting that much effort into her look. But she figured the dress would be a nice difference from what she had been wearing recently. 

“Thank you,” Wanda responded, “So do you.” Peter had also decided to dress up slightly more than usual, but it was still a casual look consisting of dark colored jeans and a collared shirt instead of a t-shirt. 

Peter led the way as they walked to the typical Thai restaurant he and May would eat at, the one where the two teens and their guardians had eaten before a few weeks prior. When it came down to it, this was the best place he could think of for a date. Any pizza place wasn’t necessarily in walking distance, and it wasn’t like he could just swing them over somewhere as Spider-Man. 

“I hope this is okay,” he said somewhat nervous after they had been given their food, “I kinda panicked last second when I realized I didn’t have a clue what you would like.” 

“This is perfect,” Wanda reassured, “I’m not really used to eating food like this, but I like it.” 

“So, what is your favorite food?” Peter asked, deciding to start on the typical ‘get to know you’ first date questions, “If you have one, that is.” 

She seemed to think for a second, “I’m not sure that I do. There are foods from my childhood that I remember liking, but it’s been so long since I’ve had anything like that. The food here is pretty different from what I grew up with, and I’m not sure what I like the most.” 

“Have you found any foods you don’t like?” 

She shrugged, “I try not to be picky. It’s just nice not having to wonder where your next meal will come from, or if it’ll be enough to last until you can eat again.” she went silent after this statement, and Peter knew better than to press her for more information on what she had just said. He thought back to the conversation on family they had the first time Wanda had ever come over to his apartment - she had said her father died when she was ten, and that she also had a twin who died in the Battle of Sokovia. Had her family been living in poverty after her father died? Though he wondered, he didn’t ask. It didn’t seem right. 

He tried to think of something else to talk about but was mostly coming up blank in the moment. Small talk really was difficult, wasn’t it? 

“So…” he started, “Is everything involving last night okay now?” 

Wanda looked taken back, “What?” 

“You said you had a rough night. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, I know it’s none of my business.” 

“Oh,” her face relaxed a bit, “There was...drama with my mom is all.” He noticed her hesitate a bit, and knew it was probably more than a normal argument a teenager would have with their parents. 

“...it wasn’t about our date, was it?” he wondered aloud. 

“No! Not at all,” Wanda assured him, “I just…” she paused again, as if searching for the right thing to say, “I don’t think I want to talk about it, if that’s alright.” 

“Of course.” 

The rest of dinner managed to go by with minimal awkward pauses, which was a relief for both teens. Neither had ever really been on a date before and didn’t know what exactly first dates were supposed to be like or what they were supposed to talk about, so it mainly consisted of generic get-to-know-you questions. Having known each other only for about a month at this point, it was nice to get to know the other more outside of anything involving school or homework. 

As they left the restaurant, Peter glanced at the time and saw that it was still a while before Wanda had to be home, so he suggested walking around the neighborhood for a while (he didn’t voice this outloud, but he was already planning on walking her back to her house afterwards to avoid her getting lost. It was also proper date etiquette, wasn’t it?). 

The two had been walking around for only a few minutes when it became obvious that neither had really bothered to look at the weather for that night, or at least anything past the temperature, when the first crack of thunder sounded. 

Peter looked up towards the sky, “I guess I should get you home before it starts raining on us.” He didn’t want to cut their time short, but getting rained on didn’t sound like a good plan either. If anything, it sounded like a way to get on Wanda’s mother's bad side early on. 

“I guess so,” Wanda replied, not sure what else to say. She was enjoying spending time with Peter, and after the craziness of the past day she was glad to just walk and talk with someone her own age who didn’t really know anything about who she was. It did suck that she wasn’t able to talk through her feelings about the newfound information with him, but it was also nice that he didn’t have any reason to look at her any different than he had before. There was a brief moment of panic when she thought about him looking at her differently when he found out her secret, but she pushed the feeling down to continue enjoying the night for now. 

The rain started right when they were walking up to the door of Wanda’s house, and saying it was a downpour felt like an understatement. “Maybe you should stay here until the rain calms down?” Wanda said without first thinking, opening the door and all but pulling him inside, “It’s not good to walk in storms.” 

She walked into the living room where she saw Clint sitting, and only caught a very quick glance of Nat as she disappeared into a hallway, shortly followed by the sound of her bedroom door shutting. Clint looked at his phone and then back up at the two teens, “You’re back early.” 

“It’s storming,” Wanda explained, “I thought it would be okay if Peter waited the storm out here?” 

“I’m sure it is, but maybe give your mother a heads up next time?” it hit her why Natasha had so quickly left the room - obviously, just sitting in the house Nat didn’t bother disguising herself. Peter didn’t know her as a redhead, and in all honesty was likely to recognize who she really was by her natural hair, as it wasn’t an all too common color to begin with. 

...Did he recognize Clint? Maybe not, he wasn’t really as well known as the other Avengers. 

“Sorry,” she apologized, both her and Peter sitting on the couch. Natasha walked back out a minute later, blonde wig on. 

“I hope it’s okay if I stay here until the rain lightens up….” Peter said, not sure what else to say to either adult, “I can call my aunt to come get me if it’s not?” 

Nat shook her head, “It’s fine, I wouldn’t want to be out in it either. But do let May know where you are? I can take you home later if it doesn’t stop.” 

Peter nodded, “Thank you,” he knew that May really wouldn’t be expecting him home during the time frame he figured he’d be in Maximoff's home, but sent her a quick text letting her know where he was anyways. 

Natasha tapped on Clint’s shoulder and motioned towards the dining room, “Come on, we can let them enjoy the rest of their date in here. We should leave them alone.” 

Clint nodded, getting up and grabbing a laptop off the coffee table before following the other out of the room. There wasn’t a door separating the living and dining rooms, only a wall to give each pair a bit of privacy. 

Wanda turned on the television, letting Peter pick what they watched. They continued their small talk from before the sudden onslaught of rain, occasionally falling into a comfortable silence (made comfortable by the noise from the show they had turned on). 

It was during one of the moments of silence between the two teens that Peter heard the hushed whispering from the dining room. He tried not to eavesdrop, but he couldn’t really help it. The show was in the middle of a decently quiet scene, and there was nothing else to try and focus on instead of the others’ conversation. 

_“Is there anybody that you could try and ask who might remember? You’ve mentioned something about a sister, haven’t you?”_ he heard the man whispering. _“Or is she...gone?”_

_“If I don’t remember, none of the others would.”_

_“But you can get a hold of someone?”_

There was a pause before Peter heard Natasha answer, _“I could, but bringing them into this might not be the best idea. It’s dangerous, Clint.”_

_“Since when have you ever cared about that?”_

_“Since I found out I had a daughter to think about. I’m not bringing Yelena or…”_ Peter missed the rest of whatever was said as the show got louder again, so he tried to simply focus back on the television and not the conversation he wasn’t even supposed to have heard. Maybe he could ask Wanda about who the man - Clint, her mother had called him - and ‘Yelena’ were later. She should know...right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slight delay getting this one out, it was actually kinda a struggle to write, lol. But hey, if anybody has any date ideas for Peter and Wanda, let me know! I'll try to get in more fluff with the two of them. 
> 
> Let me know what you think!! Feel free to reach out to me on twitter @/oceanicflights or tumblr @/mcuscarletspider as well!


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, reading over this chapter: well, this story took a weird turn somewhere but hey, whatever 
> 
> This story has taken such a wildly different path than I had originally planned, but I hope you guys are still enjoying it, lol

_There were four people in the house, assuming she had counted correctly. It was confusing and she was curious as to what exactly was going on, yet she stayed hidden in her spot across the street. It had been a pain tracking down Natalia, now Natasha, but she had finally managed to find her living in Queens. While it was good to see that Natasha hadn’t lost her ability to remain out of sight even though her name was well known by the public now, it was odd to see that she had settled here of all places, and with what seemed to be two teenagers in the house? What was the story there? Was this some weird assignment she had been sent on by her employer, whoever that was nowadays?_

_She had known to look in New York, but from there the search was a pain in the ass. Whatever, in the end she had managed to locate the ex-assassin’s exact location. Now she had to wait for the perfect time to make herself known. It was still early in the night, so she was prepared to wait a few hours until the household had fallen asleep. Sure, she could just go up to the door now, but it was anybody’s guess how Natasha would react._

_At some point, headlights caught her eye. Natasha and the teenagers had gotten in the car and were leaving. Not long after, the car returned with only two people in it - Natasha and the female teen who had left with her. So the male one didn’t live there._

_She glanced at the time. Surely it wouldn’t be a much longer wait._

*** 

Wanda turned off the television after a bit, seeing that the time had passed 9pm. “Do you need to get home soon?” she asked the other sitting on the couch with her. 

“It probably would be a good idea,” Peter said, also checking the time, “My aunt might not appreciate me being out way too late.” getting up, he went to look out the window, “It’s not raining as hard now, I should be good to walk back.” 

“I’m sure we can drive you,” Wanda offered, “Walking in the rain isn’t good for you. You could get sick.” 

“If it’s okay, then that’d be great.” he smiled, not sure what else to do. He was fine walking in the rain, even if he would prefer not doing so. He didn’t want to inconvenience anyone. 

“My mom already offered. I’ll go let her know. But…” she paused for a second, trying to find the right thing to say, “I had fun tonight. Thank you.” 

“Me too, I’m sorry about the rain.” 

For some reason, this made Wanda laugh, “You didn’t make it rain. Besides, because it rained we got to hang out a bit longer. Technically, I was supposed to be home over half an hour ago.”

The two stood in silence for a few seconds before she spoke again, “But uh...I’ll go ask my mother if she can give you a ride home.” 

A few minutes later the three of them - Natasha, Wanda, and Peter - had all gotten in the car and were heading towards Peter’s apartment. Wanda had assumed that she was supposed to tag along to keep it from just being Nat and Peter in the car...that was the right thing to do, right? Sure, Wanda had been in the car alone with May hardly a week prior, but that was different. It hadn’t been following a date so it wasn’t the same thing. Whatever, she just wanted to ride with them. 

“So,” Natasha started after they dropped Peter off and started to drive away from his place, “Can I assume the date went well?” 

“It did.” 

“Should I wait before I give you the ‘don’t run out because you’re upset’ lecture, or do you want it now?” 

“...so I am in trouble?” 

Natasha sighed, “I won’t ground you this time, but pull a stunt like that again…” she didn’t need to finish the threat, “I know last night was a lot. I’m sorry that I’ve turned your life upside down with what I told you, but you seriously can’t just run away like that. I know you can protect yourself, but remember nobody knows about who you are and we’re trying to keep it that way. You shouldn’t ever be in a position where you need to protect yourself. You need to be kept safe.” 

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” 

Before the silence could drag on long enough to become awkward, Nat spoke again, “I’m going to find out what I can about all of this, I promise.” 

“...Do I have to call you mother now? Even when nobody else is around?” 

“Not if you don’t want to. You can still call me Nat if that’s what you want.” Wanda tried to see if there was any hint of sadness in Natasha’s answer, but the former spy was too good at hiding it if there was. Did Nat want to be called mom, or would she prefer that she did keep only referring to her as Nat? Wanda really had no clue anymore. 

They didn’t speak again the remainder of the car ride, or as they walked into the house. There was probably more that the two needed to talk about, but neither had the energy to do that at the moment. Natasha hadn’t gotten much sleep at all, not that she was letting that show, and wanted nothing more than to simply get a full night's rest. She didn’t want to deal with another full-on conversation about this right now. 

While Wanda and Peter had been watching television, her and Clint had been discussing options on how they could possibly find out more information on what exactly had happened to Natasha and how Wanda and Pietro ended up living in Sokovia. Old SHIELD files hadn’t been helpful in the slightest, other than being the reason Natasha had seen that gap in information they had on her. 

Reaching out to any of her remaining contacts in Russia was always an option, but it was the last thing Natasha wanted to do. If they weren’t aware that Wanda was still alive, she didn’t want to put her back on their radar, god forbid they decide to try and take her. Not that she thought that Yelena or even Melina would sell Wanda out to anybody, assuming that there would be anybody that would be interested to know where Wanda was now. 

Maybe it would end up being the only option in the end, but Natasha wanted to make sure that there was no other way first. Along with the chance of it being dangerous for Wanda to get anybody else who was associated with the Red Room involved, it had been so long since Nat had talked to them. Yes, she would call Yelena her sister, but it had been years since they had last talked. It seemed like no matter who it was, there was always the chance that talking to family would be putting someone in danger. 

So Natasha just decided to go to bed early that night. She could use the time alone to think everything through, as well as any extra sleep it might get her. All the other conversations, or continuing of conversations, could wait until the next day. 

*** 

It was midnight, and Wanda was still awake. She had thought that not sleeping the night before would mean she would be fast asleep by now, but apparently sleeping from early morning to well into the afternoon meant you would be up late. Who knew. 

She was smiling at her phone, rereading the conversation she had with Peter after they had taken him home. He had texted her and reiterated that he had enjoyed their date, with her agreeing with him. He then asked if she’d like to go out again sometime, to which she said yes. She couldn’t believe this was happening, and she hoped it would last for a little while longer. She didn’t want it to fall apart when she inevitably would have to return to the compound. 

Wanda had finally decided to put her phone away and lay down to try and sleep when she thought she heard a door open somewhere in the house. Nothing to worry about, there were two other people in the house. She knew Nat had gone to bed early, as had Clint, but maybe one of them had gotten up for some reason. 

It was a few minutes later when she heard a crashing sound, followed by more loud undisguisable noises that she started to feel concerned. Despite just about everything inside of her telling her to just stay in the room, Wanda got up and went to investigate what was going on. Had someone broken in? Surely not, there was no way Natasha hadn’t somehow made that impossible. 

Before she turned the corner out of the hallway and into the living room, Wanda knew that someone had someone gotten into the house. Whoever it was, they were obviously a decent fighter, being able to hold their own against (presumably) both Natasha and Clint. Did they need help? 

She stepped around the corner and instantly had to dodge something being thrown her way, using her magic to quickly send it flying in another direction and hoping nobody was in its path. 

“Well, now that’s interesting.” a female voice Wanda didn’t recognize said. She saw a blonde woman standing in the middle of a near-destroyed living room, Natasha being the only other person in the room. Where was Clint? 

The new woman glanced at Wanda before looking over to Natasha, “So, sister, do you want to introduce me now, or do you want to continue destroying your home first?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, let me know what you think and feel free to reach out to me on twitter @/oceanicflights or tumblr @/mcuscarletspider or @/historywonderland ! 
> 
> But seriously, when I started writing this story this was not the direction I thought it would go, but sometimes my brain just goes "okay, but consider" and then I have an entirely new side plot planned out for this story.


	23. Chapter 23

“Yelena,” Natasha started, “What are you doing here?” 

“I’d like to know what _you’re_ doing here, actually.” Yelena replied, “Domestic life? Didn’t think you were the type. Have you changed that much?” she gave a small, forced smile, “Actually, that’s kind of why I’m here. We need to talk.” 

“What’s wrong?” 

Yelena nodded in Wanda’s direction, “What led to this? Are you protecting her or something?” 

“You could say that,” now Nat focused on Wanda, “Go to the spare room and wait with Clint. I told him to stay out of this, and you should too.” 

Wanda finally found her voice, “Who is this? She just...she just broke into our house! And it looks like you two were trying to kill each other! Why are you suddenly so...calm about whatever’s happening?” 

Nat shook her head, “We’ll just say it’s a weird way of greeting long lost family. Spare room, now.” 

“But-” 

“Wanda. Now.” the teen grumbled a bit, but turned and went to the room where Clint had been sleeping. Or apparently, at the moment, simply listening to the two women in the living room fight it out. 

Once Wanda was out of sight, Yelena spoke again, “So, Wanda? That little trick of hers was interesting...does she have anything to do with that red magic people were saying they saw when you were fighting robots in Sokovia?” 

“You know about that?” 

“I don’t live under a rock. Yes, I know all about your adventures fighting aliens and killer robots. Sad I have to hear about my sister's life through the news, though. You can’t even bother to send a letter every now and again?” 

Natasha sighed, “Why are you here?” 

“I found something I thought you should know.” 

“And you couldn’t send it in a letter?” the redhead shot back, though with a joking tone in her voice. She was irritated that Yelena had just shown up, especially with the Wanda situation going on, but she had to admit it was a nice feeling to see her sister again after so many years. It was good to know that she was okay. 

“This isn’t something you’d want to learn through a letter.” Yelena didn’t match the playful tone that Nat had, but rather sounded serious, “I was going through some of the records I stole before burning everything down from the Red Room.” 

“...you stole records? When? I was there the entire time.” 

Now Yelena gave a small smile, “About that...turns out, we didn’t really take everyone out back then. When you were off saving New York from aliens, I was hunting down the remnants of the Red Room. There weren’t many of them left, so once I found them it wasn’t hard to take them out. Most of the girls were still pretty young and I guess relatively innocent, so it wasn’t hard to convince them to help. Anyways, I realized they had managed to save some files from our time as their students so I took them. I figured if these records were important enough to keep with them through their new generation of widows, there might be some information that would be useful one day. I was right.” 

“...you’ve had them since 2012 and just now looked through them? Why didn’t you tell me any of this when, I don’t know, it was actually happening?” 

“You were preoccupied, and like I said, I didn’t feel like sorting through all of them when it could’ve been things we had already known. Turns out I was wrong about that, there was some interesting new information in them.” 

“So why go through them now? What changed your mind?” Natasha asked, slowly beginning to lose patience. 

Yelena walked back to the door, picking up a bag she had dropped when she entered the house, and then went to sit down in the dining room, where everything was still neat and not turned over. “I’ve been having these dreams, well really I think they’re memories.” she finally said when Natasha joined her, “Weird memories, that didn’t seem to add up. They just...surfaced, so I thought maybe they had kept records of the memories they had taken from us. I wanted to see if I could find any answers.” 

Natasha didn’t speak, but rather waited for her sister to continue, “So,” Yelena said after a second of silence, “I first came across your name. I found mine as well, if you were wondering, but...I figured this is something you’d want to know.” she reached into the bag and pulled out a folder that looked like it had seen better days, sliding it over to her sister. 

The Avenger looked at it then up at Yelena before focusing her attention fully on the folder, flipping it open and staring down at the first page. 

_ROMANOVA, NATALIA_

_MOTHER OF MULTIPLES - TWINS (M AND F)_

_TWINS INTERACTION WITH ROMANOVA MINIMAL - SENT TO FAMILY IN NOVI GRAD, SOKOVIA_

_DETAILS FOR EXPERIMENT INSIDE_

Natasha stared at the words, not flipping the page to see what came next. “How long have you known this?” she asked. 

“Maybe two weeks. You weren’t the easiest to find.” a pause, “Honestly, I was expecting a worse reaction.” 

“I found out not long ago.” 

“You have your memories of it too? Giving birth?” 

“No, I found my daughter.” 

Now Yelena stayed silent for a second, “The girl with the magic. She’s one of your children, isn’t she? Where’s the other? Your file says you had a son and a daughter.” 

Natasha didn’t answer, looking back up and her sister with a hint of confusion, “Wait...you asked if I had my memories of giving birth to? Your weird memories were you giving birth?” 

“I asked you a question first.” 

“Where’s your file?” Nat knew that the blonde would continue to press about Pietro, but at the moment she was more concerned with finding out if Yelena had also mothered a set of twins, ones that would have been separated at birth. Seeing her sister not budge, she sighed and gave her the answer to her question, “Wanda’s brother was named Pietro. He died in Sokovia during the fight.” 

“Did he also have powers?” 

“You have to answer my question first.” 

“How did you find your children?” Yelena whispered, “Did you look for them, or did they find you?” 

“Neither, we didn’t know about any of this until recently. Us meeting was completely by chance...has somebody reached out to you?” 

Yelena shook her head, now pulling out another old folder and sliding it over once again, “I don’t know what to do. When I saw that you also had children, I thought maybe we could figure it out together. I didn’t realize you already knew.” 

Natasha opened the folder. 

_BELOVA, YELENA_

_MOTHER OF ONE - (F)_

_KEPT_

“Kept?” Natasha said aloud, “What does that mean?” 

“Flip to the next page.” confused, Nat did as Yelena had said, flipping to the next page and seeing something nearly identical to the first. 

_BELOVA, YELENA_

_MOTHER OF TWO - FIRST CHILD (F: KEPT) SECOND CHILD (F)_

_KEPT_

“I have two daughters, according to that.” Yelena explained, “And they were both ‘kept’, whatever that means. All I can gather from that is they didn’t kill them on spot, but that means they might have been raised like we were. Except for them, it would be from birth. And if that’s the case...then I probably don’t have two daughters anymore.” 

Nat took a second to think about what she had just been told, “You think that we might’ve killed them when we put an end to it all.” 

“I don’t know. I don’t even know how to begin trying to figure out who they are. You apparently already got lucky and found your long lost children.” 

“Yelena,” Natasha sighed, knowing this was probably the closest her sister would actually get to asking for her help, “We’ll find them. We’ll find out what happened to your daughters, and if this,” she motioned to the folder with her own name, “doesn’t give me the answers I want about my own, then you’ll help me track down more information.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> am i just making stuff up as i go along? you know it! am I just ignoring all canon at this point? I think I was from the start anyways so oh well. My friend hyped up this idea when I had it and we planned it all out so it's happening 
> 
> As always, let me know what you think and feel free to reach out to me on twitter @/oceanicflights or tumblr @/mcuscarletspider ! I absolutely love reading your comments


	24. Chapter 24

“Who is she?” Wanda asked immediately after Natasha called her out of the spare room, “Clint wouldn’t tell me anything. I know you two like to keep me in the dark about things, but she broke into the house. Is she dangerous? You said she was family but you’ve never mentioned family before.” 

“I also said the words _go to bed_ less than a minute ago, but you seem to have already forgotten that.” Nat responded as they walked into Wanda’s bedroom, “You’re going to ruin your sleep schedule if you keep staying up all night.” 

Wanda turned to face her mother, “You’re really not going to tell me? I was hoping you would stop keeping secrets that involve me.” 

“Why do you think this involves you?” 

“Because she broke into a house I’m living in. Even if she was just here to kill you, I think that makes it involve me. And if she’s _your_ family, then doesn’t that make her _my_ family?” the teen crossed her arms, “Do I have more relatives? A grandmother? I think I have a right to know!” 

Nat sighed, knowing that the other had a point, “Yelena is my sister. Not biologically, but still my sister nonetheless. She didn’t come here to kill me, she came here to ask for help. There, now go to bed. I’m not letting you sleep in until noon this time.” 

Wanda mumbled something that Nat didn’t quite catch as she got back into her own bed, then looked over at the doorway the older woman was standing in, “If you want me to sleep, you shouldn’t stand there staring at me.” she said. 

The redhead left the room and shut the door behind her, wondering why it seemed like the teenager was still upset with her. She had told her who Yelena was, wasn’t that what she wanted to know? There was already so much going on, adding ‘understanding grumpy teenager’ to the list of things she now had to do didn’t seem preferable, yet here she was. 

She went to her own room, where Yelena was laying on her bed staring at the ceiling, “Do you still need them?” she whispered, looking over at her sister, “To sleep?” 

Natasha shook her head, “Sometimes, but not often. Do you?” 

“I’ve been trying to stop for a while now. Not really any professional help I can get for that, though. I think it’s getting better, I can get through more and more full nights without them now.” Yelena looked back up to the ceiling, “It’s hard. I hate that it feels like they still have so much control over me.” 

Sitting down on the other side of the bed, Nat shook her head, “They’re gone. They aren’t doing this to anybody else, and you’re free from it. Just because sometimes it doesn’t feel like it doesn’t mean it’s not true.” 

“I was free from it until I found out they made us mothers. They gave us children and I don’t know where or who mine are. I can’t move past it until I have answers on what became of them, even if it’s not the answers I want.” 

“Not the answers you want?” 

“I don’t want to find out that we killed them. I want to believe they were there the second time I was fighting the Red Room, that they were two of the girls that helped me and then escaped. Like I said, most of the girls were still pretty young. My daughters would’ve been ten and eleven based on the birth years they had listed.” Yelena sighed, “Only fourteen and fifteen now.” 

Natasha nodded but didn’t say anything. The files that Yelena had brought did contain the days each child had been born, Yelena’s oldest being born only a month after Wanda and Pietro were. Yet, while Yelena’s children were presumably being trained to become assassins, Natasha’s were dealing with losing the family they had grown up knowing and becoming homeless. 

“We aren’t going to be able to find them, are we?” Yelena whispered after Nat laid down next to her, “Even if they are still alive, there’s no way to even begin tracking them down. At least I knew who you were and that you’d be in New York somewhere when I was looking for you. There’s no way to trace where they would have gone, especially not even knowing their names.” 

Neither said anything for a few minutes, not wanting to acknowledge that she was right. How were you supposed to find someone you knew quite literally nothing about? “You didn’t tell me how you know that Wanda is yours.” the blonde’s voice broke the silence, “You know for a fact that she is?” 

“According to her DNA, yes.” Natasha answered, wondering if Yelena was going to suggest attempting something similar now, “I’m guessing you’ve heard of Stark? He found out when he was putting her information in. His system matched her with me. Same with her brother.” 

Her sister seemed lost in thought, so Nat knew exactly what she was about to say, “If my daughters were to have their DNA in a system or something somewhere, would we be able to find it? Using mine?” 

“If you want to get Stark involved, and if he agrees to help, then maybe. That would depend on if two supposed ex-Red Room girls actually got caught at some point, though.” 

“Maybe it is worth a shot. Call your friend tomorrow and ask if he’d be willing to help.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” 

“Do you know anything about Tony Stark?” Natasha laughed, “He can be a pain to work with. I’m sure he’d jump at the chance to help if I asked, though.” 

Yelena gave a smile, “I’m sure I can handle it. Besides, his help might be the only real chance I have to find my kids.” 

*** 

The following afternoon, Natasha had asked Clint to take Wanda out for lunch so she wouldn’t be in the house and possibly overhear the conversation. Nat made a mental note to catch Clint up on everything that was going on, as she hadn’t had a chance to tell him anything that Yelena had told her the night before. 

The call with Tony had been one with video, and he seemed very interested the second he saw Yelena. 

“You have a sister?” he had asked, “Since when? Do you have an entire super-secret-spy family you haven’t told us about?” he joked. 

“Maybe we do,” Yelena had been the one to answer, “But you’ll never know. I was hoping you might be able to help me find some people.” 

“You two need my help tracking someone? I’m honored, really.” Tony grinned, “How can I be of assistance? I thought Romanoff would be able to find anyone she wanted to.” 

Natasha was the one who spoke this time, “Yeah, but usually I at least have some sort of name. I don’t currently have a way to go about finding them except for you.” 

Tony raised an eyebrow, “You don’t know who you’re looking for? What exactly do you need my help with, then? How am I supposed to help?”

“If we had the maternal DNA of someone, do you think you’d be able to find the person? Assuming that they’re in a database somewhere, and when I say somewhere I mean it could quite literally be anywhere in the world.” Natasha said, “And yes, I’m being serious.” 

“Worried you have more kiddos running around somewhere? Not gonna lie, I already checked to see if I could find anyone else linked to you. Came up empty.” 

Yelena spoke again, “It’s not anyone linked to her you’d be looking for, it’s ones linked to me. My children.” 

“You don’t know your child's name?” 

“Stark,” Nat glared into the camera, “She grew up like I did. Connect the dots.” 

“...right, sorry.” he said, “Whenever you can get up to the compound, I can see what I can find for you.” 

*** 

Wanda wasn’t thrilled at the idea of being left behind while Natasha and Yelena went back to the compound that afternoon, but she also didn’t really want to go with them anyways. She had school and was going to be officially starting AcaDec practice, so she’d deal with staying with Clint while Nat was gone. 

What really got to her was that Natasha was obviously keeping something from her. 

“Why are you two going to the compound?” Wanda had asked, “What’s going on now?” 

“Don’t worry about it.” was the answer Nat had given. 

Wanda crossed her arms, “Back to keeping secrets from me?” 

“Why we’re going doesn’t concern you. And it’s not my business to share, I’m just helping Yelena.” 

The teen knew she couldn’t really argue this point - as far as she knew, Yelena had come to the house not even knowing about her, seeking out Nat’s help. It still didn’t make Wanda any less curious as to what was going on. 

“Look,” Natasha sighed, “When we get back, if Yelena says it's okay, then I’ll tell you. Don’t try and pressure her into telling you either. Got it?” 

“Fine…” she groaned, “Do you know when you’ll be coming back?” 

“Not yet, but I’ll let you know. And Wanda?” she tried her best to give a comforting look, “If you need me for any reason, even if it’s just to talk, please text or call. I’ll answer.” 

*** 

As soon as Natasha and Yelena got to the compound that evening, Tony told them to go to his lab so they could get started right away. He wasted no time in getting the swab he needed from Yelena then going to the computer to get the search set up. 

“Just so you know,” Yelena said, “I’m aware that nothing could come of this, that we could end up finding nothing.” 

“We’ll have a little faith for now, though.” Tony said in response, not looking away from what he was doing, “Young people make mistakes, they slip up. Especially when they’re on their own.” 

“If they’re alive.” the blonde woman mumbled. Nobody said anything after this. Tony knew he could make some comeback, but even he could read the room and tell now was probably not the best time to make jokes or any other wise comments. 

After a few minutes he spoke again, just to update the two others on what was going on, “I’m starting the search in eastern Europe, FRIDAY will make her way around seeing if she can find anything in any databases we can get into.” 

Hours went by with nothing. It was late (or early, depending on how you wanted to look at it), and all three people were still awake and sitting in the lab. For Tony this wasn’t anything new, he simply busied himself with something else he was working on. Natasha and Yelena were left to pretty much sit there and talk, or sit in silence. 

Wanda had called at one point to ask how everything was going and tried to get any information out of Nat, but had been shut down and told she needed to get ready for bed since she had school the next day. 

Natasha was about to suggest that maybe the two of them go try and get some sleep, or at least get out of the lab, when something started beeping and got everyone’s attention. 

“What is that?” Yelena asked, “Did something happen?” 

Tony went over to where FRIDAY had already pulled up the information she had been able to find, “Yes,” he said, “We just got a match. Congratulations, your children are alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to put who they are at the end, but decided "hey, keep em on the edge of their seats" 
> 
> Also, just know, I'm really throwing canon to the wind at this point. ...do we have any guesses on who these two could be? 
> 
> As always, let me know what you think (or who you think her daughters are), and feel free to reach out to me on twitter @/oceanicflights or tumblr @/mcuscarletspider to yell at me for leaving it on a cliffhanger again


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay my kiddos, just remember I'm kinda throwing canon to the wind here now. These two characters (Yelena's children) I'm taking the very basics from their actual backgrounds but obviously changing up quite a bit. With that being said...
> 
> *slowly sets this chapter down then turns and runs*

Yelena stared at Tony, “They’re alive?” she questioned, “You found them?” 

“Well, where they were about a month ago. And we have names, though they could be aliases. There’s really no way to tell.” 

“Where were they?” Natasha asked, seeing her sister processing everything, “Where is this information coming from?” 

Tony turned his attention back to the computer, “Looks like somewhere in Connecticut. They…” he frowned, “They went into a hospital’s free clinic and apparently seemed nervous and agitated, not wanting to give the nurses any personal information. The most they got out of them was two first names and that one was injured. They stitched up the injury and managed to convince the patient to do some basic blood work. They contacted CPS thinking that they were probably missing children or runaways because of how odd they were acting, but by the time anybody checked on them again they had disappeared. A police report was made but nobody ever saw them again and they weren’t able to match the one’s DNA with anyone, until now that is.” 

“So it was only one of them?” Nat tried to clarify, “We don’t know that the other girl that was with her is her sister.” 

“For now I think we can assume it was, can’t we?” 

Now Yelena spoke again, coming out of her small state of shock, “What are their names?” she asked quietly, repeating herself a bit louder when she didn’t get an answer at first, “What are their names? I need to know. Maybe I’ll recognize them.” 

At this point, Natasha walked over to the screen and was also reading over the information that had been found, “They said their names were Nadia and Ying. Those don’t seem like fake names...if they were trying to hide, they would’ve chosen much more common names for that area.” looking over to Yelena, her expression softened, “Do you recognize them?” 

She shook her head, “They might be familiar, but they don’t stand out. Is there any security camera footage with their faces I can look at?” now she got up, joining the others around the screen and quickly looking at the report that was pulled up, explaining how the two girls had appeared and then disappeared at the clinic. 

“FRIDAY?” Tony asked, followed by a projection of a blurry CCTV footage popping up and playing a clip of the two teenagers walking in. One was holding her arm to her chest, the other had an arm wrapped around the injured ones shoulders, as if guiding her. “The one who got stitches was Ying, the other Nadia.” Tony explained. 

Nat watched her sister's face, looking for any reaction. The reaction she got was slightly unexpected - Yelena turned and walked out of the lab, not saying anything. Natasha quickly followed, wondering what was wrong. 

“Yelena?” she asked when the other finally stopped, having walked outside, “What was that about?” 

Yelena took a deep breath, “I know who they are.” 

*** 

After Natasha and Yelena left, Wanda tried to get information out of Clint. 

“Come on,” she whined, “I’m tired of not knowing what's going on! The last time this happened I found out that my biological mother was alive. Is this something like that? Why has Natasha never mentioned she had a sister before? Come on, give me _something_.” 

“I wouldn’t even if I could,” was the response Clint gave, “I’ve been left just as in the dark as you this time, kiddo. As soon as she realized it was Yelena who was in the house she demanded that she handle it herself.” 

“And you just let her keep secrets from you like that?” 

Now he laughed, “If Tasha is keeping secrets from me, then it’s for a reason. If it was that serious, or at the very least was going to be putting any of us in danger, then she’d have told me already. If she told you not to worry about it, don’t worry about it.” 

“But…” 

“Nope. Already told you I don’t know anything, so no matter how much you try, you aren’t going to get anything out of me.” 

For the rest of the day, Wanda sat around and didn’t do much other than text Peter and try to find something to watch to keep her amused. Honestly, after everything that had happened that weekend, she was glad to finally have some time that felt normal. Sure, Nat and her secret sister were off doing something that they wouldn’t tell her about, but it was still the most normal moment she had felt since Friday afternoon. Not that she hadn’t felt normal during her date with Peter, but that was still a new experience for her. 

She wondered how long Natasha would be gone, if it would just be for the night or if it would be multiple days. Wanda realized it had been a while since she had spent multiple days away from Nat, even before they had left the compound. Nat had always been there watching over her in some regard, minus the one night when she had gone to the compound while Wanda had been over at Peter’s. 

In that moment, it dawned on Wanda that everything had pretty much happened in the span of less than a week. She had gone to Peter’s on Tuesday following AcaDec practice, and had been asked to join the team then later asked to the dance. That was the night that Natasha had gone to the compound, when Tony had apparently told her she was Wanda’s mother. Then Clint came to town unexpectedly. On Friday Peter had asked her on a date, and later that day her life did a complete one-eighty when she found out about Natasha being her mother. 

Of course, it didn’t end there either. Saturday night following her first ever date, a stranger broke into the house. Said person turned out not to be a stranger - and then suddenly Natasha was rushing off with them up to the compound. 

_‘If Nat’s known since Tuesday,’_ Wanda thought, _‘I bet she called Yelena to help her remember something. She lied to me again!’_

After a few minutes of simmering on that thought, Wanda decided to call Natasha and once again try and find out why she had left that afternoon. She wasn’t really expecting to get an answer out of her, but hey, worth a shot right? 

“Isn’t it time for you to be getting ready for bed?” Natasha has said, “It’s getting late and you have school tomorrow.” 

“But I’m not tired,” she lied, “I want to know what’s going on. Is Yelena helping you with something?” Wanda knew that she had been told it was Nat who was helping Yelena, but was hoping maybe she’d slip up. 

“No, I’m helping her with something, as I already told you. And once you start getting ready for bed, you’ll be tired. I know you haven’t gotten a lot of sleep this weekend, and I don’t want to hear that you stayed up late tonight as well.” 

“But…” 

“Wanda,” Nat said sternly, “Go get ready for bed. I’ll check in with you tomorrow, okay?” 

“Fine…” in all honesty, the teen was more than ready to go to bed. It was still a decent hour, and she was hopeful that there would be nothing tonight that could possibly disturb her sleep. 

After taking a quick shower and making sure she had everything ready for school the next day, Wanda fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. 

*** 

_Opening her eyes, Wanda looked around trying to get a sense of where she was. Looking down, she saw she was wearing an old hospital-looking gown. Was she back in Strucker’s lab? It almost looked like it was, but it was...different, somehow._

_She tried to sit up, but something was stopping her. She heard someone scream, eyes widening when she realized it was Natasha. Was she okay? What was she doing here?_

_“Ah, she’s awake,” a deep voice said, “Do you think we should knock her out again?”_

_“No point,” another said. Wanda tried to get a look at their faces, but they wouldn’t come into focus. Why could she not see their faces? “It’s a shame the other one died, now we can’t finish our study.”_

_“Do we kill this one too?”_

_“Perhaps, or maybe we can get her to follow in her mother's footsteps,” the second man laughed, “That is, assuming we can get that one back in line.”_

_Natasha...they were talking about Natasha. Was this the Red Room she had talked about? No, no she said they were all gone. This couldn’t be real. It wasn’t really happening._

_“WANDA!” she heard Nat’s voice call out. Wanda wanted to yell back, let Nat know she was okay. Was she okay? She wasn’t in any pain. Opening her mouth, nothing came out. She couldn’t speak, why couldn’t she speak? It felt like her throat was closing up, suddenly she wasn’t able to breathe either._

_She felt hands on her shoulder, shaking her. “Come on, Wanda. It’s okay, come on.”_

Wanda’s eyes flew open, “Mama,” she gasped out, trying to get air in. She saw Clint beside her bed, his hand on her shoulder from where he had shaken her awake, “Is she okay? Nothing happened, has it?” 

“Besides you freaking out in your sleep, no, nothing happened.” he said, sitting next to her, “This is the second bad nightmare you’ve had since I’ve been here. Does this happen a lot?” 

“Can I just...can I talk to Ma...Natasha?” she asked quietly, catching herself before calling Natasha ‘Mama’ this time, “I want to hear from her that she’s okay.” 

Clint looked slightly worried, but nodded, “Okay...okay, we’ll call her.” he said. He wondered what Wanda had been dreaming about, but didn’t push her into talking about it. Whatever it was, it had obviously shaken her up pretty badly. All he knew was this was the second time in three nights he had seen the girl wake up screaming for Natasha when she wasn’t around, and he wasn’t going to get in the way of Wanda checking in on the other woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh...what did you think? (I again reiterate that I'm only taking the very basics from Nadia and Ying's background and changing up quite a bit, please don't come at me for this :') )
> 
> Follow me on twitter @/oceanicflights for lots of me screaming (this is the reason I'm updating at 2am guys, I was up screaming on twitter), or tumblr @/mcuscarletspider for...still me screaming, but not as much. 
> 
> Can you tell I'm tired and sleep deprived?


	26. Chapter 26

“You know them?” Natasha repeated, looking at her sister, “As in, recognize them or actually know them?” 

Yelena took a deep breath, “I...I helped them. The second time around. I never asked their names. It didn’t matter to me then. The Widows who escaped the Red Room’s control and helped kill them, I didn’t really bother monitoring where they went after. I let them go.” 

“It wasn’t like you had any way of knowing who they were, Yelena. And obviously they’ve managed to survive and keep themselves safe.” 

“Ying was hurt badly enough that she had to be taken to a hospital. That doesn’t sound like they’ve been safe to me.” 

“Yelena…” 

The blonde shook her head, cutting her older sister off, “I can’t believe this...they were so young. I shouldn’t have just let them walk away like they did! The older one, Nadia, I remember she was the first to try to escape. The first to start fighting with me instead of against me. I think she was close to Ying, because she managed to convince her to switch sides as well. Not that you really need to be convinced to fight to escape from the Red Room.” 

“They seemed close?” Natasha questioned, “Then...as much as I hate to say this, maybe one of them isn’t yours. They were close back then so they stayed together afterwards.” 

Now Yelena closed her eyes, “Does it seem stupid to say that I think they are sisters? I feel like it makes sense, thinking about how they were. Even if they don’t know it, maybe they were just drawn together somehow.” 

Nat simply nodded, not wanting to tell her sister that yes, that did seem improbable. There was no way the Red Room would’ve kept the sisters together unless there was some alternate motive behind it. But hey, anything was possible at this point, wasn’t it? This entire situation seemed improbable a little over a week ago. 

“Then again,” Yelena continued, “I didn’t even sense in any way that Ying was related to me, so maybe not. Maybe I’m just really hoping I’ve been lucky enough to find them both.” 

“Yelena…” the redhead started, “We don’t know where they are. That was a month ago. In that time they could’ve gone anywhere.” 

“Then I’ll look for them. I have names and faces, a last known location. That’s all I need. I’ll find more footage from that town, track their movements...in this day and age it’s hard to completely avoid any security footage. We finished our training and graduated, but they never did. They might be more sloppy.” she turned to go back inside, “Does your friend have a computer I can borrow? I want to get started.” 

“I’m sure there are easier ways to find them, other than tracking them possibly across the globe. Get some rest and we’ll get started in the morning.” 

“You think I’m sleeping tonight?” Yelena raised an eyebrow, “You think after finding all of this out, I can rest knowing that at least one of my children is out there alive?”

“You should.”

“What if this was the other way around, and you had just found out about Wanda? Would you sleep instead of trying to find her?” 

Natasha sighed - she had a point. When she had found out about her children, she already knew exactly where they were. She knew Wanda was alive, unhurt, and safe. Had this not been the case, Nat would’ve immediately started searching and not stopped until she got the answers she was looking for. 

How could she expect her sister to do anything less? 

“Yelena,” she tried to reason despite knowing her little sister was correct, “All of this happening tonight is exactly why you need to slow down for a few hours and try and rest. Calm down a bit so you can have a clear head to start your search.” 

Yelena was about to snap back, but was stopped when the patio door opened and Tony peaked out, “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, “But I was wondering if you wanted to go pick these two up now or later?” 

Both Widows looked at him with a hint of confusion. “What do you mean?” Yelena asked, “You said that video was a month ago. I need to track them-” she was cut off by a wave of Tony’s hand. 

“After you ran out I asked Fri to do a facial recognition search around the area they disappeared. They’re good at avoiding cameras but sometimes get caught in the frame. Every time one of them was located in a new area, Fri would start the search over from there. Funnily enough, a camera caught them both about thirty minutes ago. It seems luck is really on our side tonight, huh?” 

“I told you there were other ways than you trying to follow them,” Nat said, somewhat jokingly. 

“And I told you they’d get caught on cameras.” 

“And I’m saying I did all the work and found out they’re currently in Manhattan. Lots of cameras there, they really struggled with staying hidden.” Tony interjected, “So, you two wanna do this one alone or should I tag along?” 

*** 

The two Widow’s were on their way back to NYC shortly after the brief conversation with Tony. Natasha didn’t bother telling Clint that she was heading back to the city - she figured once they located Nadia and Ying, they’d take them back up to the compound. There was no telling what state of mind they’d be in, or how they’d react to being around new people. Even if it was closer, there was no way Nat was going to be taking them to the house in Queens yet, if they were to ever go there at all. At the very least, she had to let Wanda know about them before they showed simply up. 

Natasha parked at the tower, planning on walking to the location that Tony had given them. 

“It’s not that far from here,” she said, “Are you ready for this?” 

Yelena nodded, “I don’t think I could be any more ready.” she paused, “And by that, I mean I’m terrified and not at all ready.” 

The two began walking, unsure of what exactly they would be walking into. Nadia and Ying had been at least partially trained by the Red Room, and even if they never graduated they would still have an above average knowledge on how to fight and get away. 

Natasha and Yelena were silent as they approached the location where the camera had caught the two younger girls faces. Nat pulled up the video in question on her phone, watching to see the direction they should head next. The video was caught on a traffic camera, and showed the two teens ducking into a somewhat hidden alleyway. Showing the video to her sister, Nat looked up and spotted the area in question. 

They approached quietly, not wanting to alert the girls to their presence if they could help it. As Yelena went to glance around the corner, a voice rang out. It wasn’t a whisper like they would’ve expected, but rather the person seemed to talk loudly to make sure the two ex-assassins heard her. 

“Nadia!” the person called out, “Stop! Wait! I...I recognize her!” 

“Now they know we’re here!” Nadia hissed back, “Come on, we’ve got to go!” 

Now Yelena stepped fully into view of the alley, “Wait,” she attempted, desperate to keep them from running, “My name is Yelena Belova...do you remember me?” 

Ying was staring at Yelena, grabbing Nadia’s wrist and forcing her to turn around, “It’s her! She’s the one that got us out!” 

Nadia, now facing Yelena, was glaring daggers at her for a split second before her face seemed to soften, “You…” 

Before Natasha could make herself known, her phone lit up with a call from Wanda. _‘What is she doing up this late?’_ she thought, quickly trying to decide if she should answer or not. She did tell her daughter to call if she needed to talk at all...but now, of all times? Surely, if it was something serious, Clint would’ve been the one to call her…

So she let it ring. 

*** 

Following Clint waking her up from her nightmare and giving her the okay to call Natasha, Wanda wasted no time in grabbing her phone and hitting the call button. She knew it was late, and she hated to think she might be waking Nat up, but she _needed_ to hear her voice. She was on some mystery trip to the compound with her secret sister… so yes, she needed to know that her newly found mother was okay. 

When she got Natasha’s voicemail instead of an answer, she couldn’t help herself. Wanda began to panic. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!! I love hearing from you guys!! 
> 
> And remember, you can watch me slowly slip into madness on twitter @/oceanicflights


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its midterm season so naturally i wrote this instead of sleeping or studying

When Nadia saw Yelena, she let her guard down slightly, “You…” she said, “You _are_ the one who got us out, aren’t you?” 

Yelena nodded, “I am. I’m here to help you, if you’ll let me.” she glanced at Natasha out of the corner of her eyes, seeing her sister take a glance at her phone before switching it to silent and putting it away again. 

“How did you find us? How do we know we can trust you?” Nadia asked, seeming to be the one taking charge between the two teens. 

“I got help from a hopefully familiar face,” the blonde explained, motioning for Nat to also step into view. Natasha’s face had been all over the news on multiple occasions at this point, so she was hopeful that the two might recognize her. “Ying...have you had anybody else look at your arm since you two ran out of that hospital?” 

Both Ying and Nadia seemed to stop at the sight of Natasha, Yelena’s question going unanswered. It seems they did know who she was. 

“I know you,” Ying said, looking at the redhead, “You’re the one who fought the aliens. The one who grew up like us.” a flash of panic was briefly apparent in her facial features, “We aren’t in trouble, are we? We aren’t bad guys, we haven’t done anything wrong.” 

“No,” Natasha shook her head, “You’re not in trouble. Like she said, we’re here to help you.” she glanced around the alleyway, “I’m guessing this is where you two were planning on spending the night?” 

“We’ve managed,” Nadia answered, taking a step forward, “You’re not being completely honest, I can tell. Why...why are you two really here?” though she was acting as if she wasn’t frightened, both fully trained spies could see the panic on her face as well. 

Now Ying let out a sound of annoyance, “Nadia!” she nearly whined, “Don’t be like this. We know they’re not trying to hurt us. We came here to try and maybe find her!” 

“You came to New York to find Natasha?” Yelena questioned. 

“We heard about her,” Nadia answered, glancing back at Ying, “How she was trained in the Red Room and then joined the Americans. How she fought to save, not to kill. Ever since we left the Red Room, we’ve been on our own and I guess we just thought maybe she could help us.” she explained, finally giving in and letting all her guards down, “I didn’t think _she’d_ come looking for _us._..wait, you said you got her help.” she looked at Yelena, “You were the one trying to find us?” a nod was given in response. 

“It’s a long story, and we will tell it to you. But first can we get you two somewhere safer? I’m sure you’d much rather sleep somewhere indoors.” she answered.

“What do you need from us?” Ying asked, “If you were looking for us...that means you need something, doesn’t it?” 

Yelena had to keep her reaction at bay, not let her emotions shine through. They didn’t know anything about their relation yet, and now was not the best time to tell them, “We don’t need anything from you, we just want to know that you’re safe. That you will be safe from now on.” she thought for a second before whispering more so to herself than the others, “I just want to keep you safe.” 

Both Nadia and Ying seemed to think about it for a second, looking at each other as if waiting for the other one to decide whether or not to trust the two older women or not. 

“You trusted her before,” they heard Ying whisper, “I think we can trust her now.” 

Nadia nodded in agreement before turning back to the two Widows, “Okay,” she said, “We’ll go with you.” 

*** 

Natasha led them back to the tower, now realizing that the sun would begin to rise soon. She thought back to her phone ringing, wondering if Wanda had tried to reach out again. She had turned her phone on silent after the first time it had rang, so as to not startle Nadia and Ying if it did go off again. She expected to see the missed call notification from Wanda, and perhaps a message or two. 

What she didn’t expect to see was the missed call from Wanda, numerous frantic texts, and missed calls from Clint. The most recent notification had just come through - a text from Tony.

_‘Everything okay?’_ it read, _‘Barton said he can’t get ahold of you. Told him you went down to Manhattan because apparently you didnt. Your little witch is having a meltdown according to him. Might wanna go sort that out before she blows up the house by accident’_

Natasha cursed under her breath. How long had it been since Wanda had called? Surely not that long...still, she did have a tendency to freak out pretty quickly. And calling at the time she did, she had most definitely just woken up from a nightmare. How did she not realize this sooner? Wanda had probably been calling for some sort of comfort, and she had ignored it. 

Quickly, she responded to Stark to let him know that she was fine, and then went to call Clint back. 

“Nat, thank god,” he answered almost instantly, “Where have you been? Stark said you went to Manhattan with Yelena? What is going on?” 

“I should ask you the same,” she nearly snapped back, “What’s going on with Wanda? Is she okay?” 

“”Hang on…” Nat heard him move the phone, then attempt to get her daughters attention. “Wanda?” his voice was a bit muffled, but still audible, “Wanda, I got her on the phone. Take a breath...it’s okay...here.” 

The next voice was that of Wanda, her voice coming out raspy due to her crying, “Mama?” she choked out. 

Natasha froze for a second, processing what Wanda had just said to her, or rather called her. It had only been a few days ago that the younger girl had run away at the thought of Nat being her mother, now she was calling her Mama? She realized that Yelena, Nadia, and Ying were all watching her now, but elected to ignore them. 

“Yes,” she said after taking a breath, “It’s me, I’m sorry I missed your call. Are you okay? What happened?” 

“I...I thought they had taken you. I had a dream...I...it’s stupid, isn’t it? I’ve bothered you and Clint and I...I’m sorry!” Wanda managed to say, starting to cry again. 

“Don’t be sorry, you’re not bothering me. I told you to call if you needed me, and I should’ve answered. Who was in your dream?” Nat wasn’t sure if talking about it was the right move, but surely it couldn’t do more harm. Maybe if Wanda was able to talk through it, or Nat was able to comfort her about whatever it was, everything could be settled. 

She sniffled and tried to get her tears under control before answering, “I don’t know who they were. I couldn’t see anybody, I couldn’t talk...I thought I was back with Strucker at first, but you were there. I…” Wanda paused, as if trying to find the right words to say, “I think it was the Red Room, and I got scared. You left so suddenly yesterday with someone you know from the Red Room and wouldn’t tell me why and I guess I just…” 

“Wanda, honey, I told you I was going to the compound,” Natasha said as soothingly as possible, seeing Yelena raise an eyebrow, “Nobody’s going to be taking me anywhere, I promise.” 

There was a brief silence and another sniffle on Wanda’s end, “I...I panicked a bit. I broke some things in my room. I didn’t mean too…I think I might need a new lamp.” 

This made Natasha laugh, “Broken furniture is the last thing I’m concerned about. As long as nobody got hurt. You didn’t hurt yourself, right?” 

“No…hey, Natasha?” she whispered. So it was back to Natasha again now? 

“Yeah?” 

“Is there any way you could come home soon…? I know you’re busy but…” 

Nat glanced over at the three others with her, who had since stopped watching her and were talking about something between the three of them. She had to keep from sighing, not wanting Wanda to hear it, before saying, “I’ll be home in about an hour, but I’ll have a few extra people with me.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just need you guys to know that this story is at 122 pages long in my word document 
> 
> As always, let me know what you think! I absolutely love reading your comments


	28. Chapter 28

Natasha could tell that Nadia and Ying were on edge the entire drive to Queens, presumably only staying calm due to Yelena’s presence. Though, the redhead couldn’t find herself to really be concerned about her supposed nieces or what they might do in that moment. All that was on her mind was her own daughter, the one who really needed her right now. 

Wanda had a nightmare involving the Red Room, which was extremely concerning. It could’ve been brought about by everything that had been happening, yes, but what if it was something more? Suddenly, Natasha began to think that maybe bringing two more ex-Red Room girls into the house might not be the best idea at the moment, but it was too late. There was no getting around it now, except maybe lying about where exactly Nadia and Ying had come from. Then again, more lying would only cause issues later on. 

When they got to the house, Natasha requested to go in alone first. Assess what state Wanda was in, decide if she was okay enough to bring in the others. In all honesty, Nat wasn’t expecting to find Wanda to be fully dressed, arguing with Clint in the main room. 

“I’ll walk if you don’t want to take me, then,” Wanda said, “I can’t stay home.” 

“You can and I think it’s best that you do.” Clint came back with, “And I’m sure Natasha would agree with me on this.” 

“On what?” the ex-assassin asked as she stepped in, “What’s going on now?” 

“Wanda is trying to go to school,” her partner answered, “I tried to get her to lay back down, but she’s insisting.” 

Nat looked at her daughter, somewhat surprised that she was determined not to miss school that day. Weren’t most teens supposed to try and come up with any excuse possible to stay home from school, even on a good day? 

“No school today,” she said, “Sorry, but I’m going to take a wild guess here and say you didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and you wanted me to come home,” Natasha hoped what she was saying wasn’t coming out in any way that conveyed anger, but rather hoped it was somewhat convincing, “And right now I think I’d like to know that you’re safe and in the house, just incase you have another panic attack.” 

Wanda seemed to just notice that her mother had returned home, dropping her school bag and running over to hug her, “You came home. I thought you’d want me to go to school since I’m not sick or anything. And I have practice now that I’m on that team...” 

“Everybody needs to take a day off sometimes, it’s okay. I’ll let your teachers know you’ll be absent today.” Nat said, returning the hug, “But we do need to talk about whatever it was that happened last night. And we have a few more house guests.” 

The teen looked up at her mother slightly confused, “More?” 

“Yes.” 

“Like...Steve?” Wanda was trying to figure out who on earth Natasha could’ve brought back from the compound. Wait, she had gone there with Yelena and wouldn’t say why, hadn’t she? “Or is it another secret relative?” 

“That’s for Yelena to tell you,” Nat shook her head, “Anyways, they’re your age but...they didn’t grow up in the most conventional way.” 

“I think it’s safe to say that I didn’t either.” 

“I know just...don’t press them about who they are, okay? Don’t try to dig into their past.” she gave a small smile, “Which...after introductions are done, I think we could all use a nap, agreed?”

*** 

Peter waited for Wanda to walk into their first period class, eager to see her again. He had never been on a date before, and was hoping it hadn’t somehow messed anything up. But Wanda had agreed to go on another one, hadn’t she? Surely if he had messed up, she wouldn’t have said she’d like to see him again. 

He was slightly concerned when Wanda never showed up to the first class that day, but tried to brush it off. Had she missed a day of school yet since starting at Midtown? He wasn’t sure. Maybe she was just running late, or was just sick. There was no reason for him to feel so worried, was there? 

After lunch, when there was still no sign of her, he decided to text her to make sure everything was okay. Logically he knew she might’ve just woken up with a cold or something of the sort, but he felt the need to check in on her. 

_‘Hey! Everything okay? I noticed you weren’t in class today’_ he said. It was about an hour later, nearing the end of third period, when he heard back. 

_‘Yeah, i wasn’t feeling great this morning so mom told me to stay home’_

Peter answered between classes, _‘I can stop by and let you know what you missed in our two classes if you want?’_

_‘That’d be great! Thanks (:’_

Suddenly, Peter was more anxious than usual for the school day to end. So Wanda was just a bit sick, he knew he had been overreacting before. He wondered if he should bring her anything other than the few notes she had missed in class that day. Did she need medicine or anything? Probably not, her mother would’ve probably gotten that for her by now. But what about a little get well soon gift? That was something people did, right? Or was that only something really sick people got? 

He decided to stop in a small shop after school, it was a bit out of the way to Wanda’s house but still, he wanted to get her something. That seemed like the right thing to do if he was trying to win her over, after all. Then again, he really had no experience with any of this and didn’t have anyone he could ask who did have experience. Regardless, he picked out a small teddy bear and a chocolate bar to give the brunette. 

When he finally arrived at her house, Wanda answered the door almost instantly. Had she been waiting for him? 

“Hey,” she said, smiling at him, “Sorry you had to come all the way here, but I do appreciate it.” 

“It’s no problem,” Peter said, “Are you feeling better?” 

“Yeah, this morning was just...weird, I guess.” Wanda said, “But come on in. There’s uh...a few people here, so we should probably just go to my room.” 

Wanda ushered Peter quickly into her bedroom, not giving him any time to get a good look at anybody that might’ve been visible from the entryway. She didn’t know how she’d explain the four extra people in the house - quite honestly, she still wasn’t completely sure who the two other teenagers were. All she knew was that the entire day hadn’t gone by the best between her talk with Nat, Yelena being a complete mess for some reason, and then who she was told were Nadia and Ying being...weird, to say the least. At one point one of them had walked behind her and startled the young witch, causing her to briefly react using her powers as she was still jumpy from her nightmare. That led to an interesting discussion between everyone. 

So, to avoid any more weird conversations, she had decided to just take Peter to her bedroom. Yeah, the lamp and a few other things had been shattered the previous night, but Natasha had come in and cleaned up all the broken items. Hopefully it wasn’t too obvious. 

Wanda figured that nobody would bother them - she had told Natasha that Peter was coming over, and about her plan to just take him to her bedroom to avoid the crowd. Of course, though, this seemed to be wishful thinking. 

She had quickly copied all the notes Peter had brought her and the two were talking, mainly about the quickly approaching dance, and laughing when there was a knock on the door. 

“Yeah?” Wanda asked through laughter, still looking at Peter instead of thinking to actually check who was at her door. 

Ying poked her head in the door, “Do you know where Miss Romanoff is?” she asked, and Wanda suddenly stopped laughing as Peter looked at the girl in the doorway, then back to Wanda. 

Romanoff was a name he recognized. Maybe it wasn’t as well known as the last name Stark, but it recently had been in the news more in regards to the Avengers, seeing as the name belonged to the Black Widow. 

Peter thought he had misheard at first. Surely there was no way that’s what this person - whoever she was - had asked. But Wanda’s face...she looked like a deer in the headlights. 

“Wanda?” he asked, “What’s going on?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, midterms are a bitch. 
> 
> As always, let me know what you think! I know this chapter maybe wasn't the best, but I was desperate to get something up. 
> 
> How do you think Wanda's going to get out of this one? Or will the truth come out?


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the long delay - school picked up and I didn't have any time to write. I'm not giving up on this story, I promise!! I should have a lot more time now to work on it, so hopefully its not another month before I update again, lol.

“Do you know where Miss Romanoff is?” Ying had asked innocently, not knowing what she had caused. Peter was wondering if he had misheard something somehow - who would Miss Romanoff be? Surely whoever this was wouldn’t be asking Wanda about the Black Widow...would she? 

“Wanda?” Peter asked, seeing the shocked look on her face, “What’s going on?” 

Wanda was searching her brain for what to respond, not sure what to do now. Natasha hadn’t prepared her for anything like this. Could she just play it off as if that name hadn’t just been dropped? It was worth a shot. 

She looked over to Ying, putting a smile back on her face, “No, sorry. Have you tried asking Yelena?” 

The younger teen in the doorway mumbled something about not being able to find her either as she stepped out of the room and shut the door, leaving the older two alone again. 

“Wanda?” Peter tried again, “Who was that?”

“She’s…” the witch had to quickly decide how to explain it - Nat hadn’t really told her much about the two new teens, just that they might be related to Yelena (and even that she had to deduct on her own from Nat’s answers). “A family friend's daughter.” she said, assuming this was the best way to explain it. While it might not be the full truth, or even partly the truth, it was a solid answer. 

“Did she ask if you knew where Romanoff was?” Peter had caught his friends pause as she answered his questions, and the feeling that she was hiding something was slowly growing. 

“I think she just asked where my mom is,” Wanda answered, being truthful at first before adding on, “Why would she ask for somebody named Romanoff?” 

“Must’ve just been hearing things.” he replied, deciding not to press the matter any further. Perhaps it really just had misheard, though that didn’t explain why Wanda had looked so shocked at first when hearing the question. Everything seemed off about the entire situation. 

After that, their previous conversation slightly resumed but it felt more awkward and slightly more tense on Wanda’s part. He wasn’t sure what was going on anymore, so Peter decided that maybe it was time to leave, maybe go out patrolling as Spider-Man for a bit to clear his head. So, they said their goodbyes and Wanda walked him back to the front door, once again blocking his view of the main living area. Was that odd? Was she trying to hide something from him? Or was he simply over thinking the entire thing? 

Why would Wanda try and keep him from seeing who else was in the house? Was she lying about who that person was, and who they had asked for? He thought back, looking for other instances where Wanda had seemed off. There was the time when they had stopped by her house after their date and her mother had quickly ducked out of the room. But maybe that wasn’t weird...was it? It hadn’t seemed to be at the time. There was also the time he thought he had seen her eyes glow red, which up until now he had convinced himself was just his imagination. 

He thought back to when he had asked her about Sokovia, and the red magic that had been rumored to be seen there during the battle. Wanda has dismissed it, and once again at the time he had thought nothing of it. Was it a coincidence that the color he had seen in her eyes was also red? 

Glowing red eyes, dismissing the rumor of red magic, moving to Queens from Sokovia months after the battle, all the random people that seemed to be in her home...was he looking for reasons to think something was off about her? Peter shook his head, trying to tell himself that it was crazy to think that Wanda was hiding anything. 

But the more he thought about it, the less everything made sense. He had enhanced senses, which included his hearing. There was no way he had misheard the name Romanoff, even if it could be brushed off as being close to the name Maximoff. But Wanda’s mother was blonde, wasn’t she? Then again, a master spy could change her appearance. 

Peter was sitting on a rooftop waiting to see or hear something that needed his attention when he pulled out his phone and looked up a picture of the Avengers. Yep, Black Widow was definitely a red head and not blonde. As he closed the picture, another member of the team caught his eye and he quickly pulled it back up. When he had gone to pick Wanda up for their first date, a man had opened the door. He hadn’t been able to place his face then, but had felt like he knew him from somewhere, and now he knew where he had seen him before. 

Hawkeye had opened the door to Wanda’s house. 

*** 

Wanda stepped into the main part of the house after seeing Peter out, where she saw Nadia and Ying sitting, the adults nowhere in sight. 

“Did you ever find her?” she asked Ying, also finding a place to sit. 

“They are all in the other room,” Nadia answered without really being asked, “They said they had something important to discuss and for us to wait.” 

“Sorry about interrupting earlier,” Ying said, “I didn’t realize you had someone over.” 

“It’s okay,” Wanda shook her head, “Do you know what they’re talking about?” 

Nadia shrugged, “Probably us. All I heard was the name Stark, but I would imagine they would talk about what happens to me and Ying now.” 

“Aren’t you staying with Yelena?” 

“Isn’t Yelena staying here?” was the comeback. 

Wanda didn’t know what to say, “They could be talking about me.” she offered, “About me moving back to the compound, or...maybe even my powers.” 

This caught both girls attention fully, neither halfway paying attention to whatever show was on anymore, “Your powers are cool.” Ying said, “I bet they’re useful.” 

“They’re strong,” Nadia added on, “They threw me back with no problem.” 

“Sorry about that…” Wanda began to shrink in on herself, wishing she hadn’t brought the topic up. However, she found it shocking that the two seemed to be interested, rather than afraid, of her magic. 

“Why? I shouldn’t have startled you. That was on me. What else can your powers do?” 

“Uh…” she wasn’t sure she wanted to get into this, “I don’t really know, I haven’t explored them that much.” 

“We should test them out.” 

“I don’t know…” 

“Why not?” Ying chimed in now, looking at Wanda with pure curiosity, “Wouldn’t you want to explore them? Find out what all you can do?” 

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt.” 

“So don’t use them on people. We can find stuff outside?” Ying suggested, Nadia nodding. 

Wanda shook her head, “I don’t want anybody outside of this house to see it.” 

“You have a fence in the backyard,” Nadia pointed out, “Nobody would see you.” 

“But-” 

Wanda was cut off when the adults walked into the room, taking a seat. “No powers in the backyard,” Natasha said, “No using your powers here at all, if you can help it.” 

_‘If you can help it,’_ Wanda thought, _‘Also known as, try not to freak out in your sleep again?’_

With that, though, the conversation of Wanda’s powers was dropped. However, she had a feeling that this wouldn’t be the end of it, especially after what had happened with her powers the night before. 

_‘Fantastic.’_ Wanda thought, trying not to think about whether or not Natasha was now planning on some sort of lecture. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to those who commented even during my brief hiatus. Your comments are what got me to finish this chapter! Hopefully I can get back to updating somewhat normally again. 
> 
> As always, let me know what you think!


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a short little update focusing on Peter! I didn't realize it had been so long since I had last posted, so I wanted to quickly write something up for you guys. I'm sorry if there's any mistakes, I didn't really proof read this one.

Hawkeye had opened the door to Wanda’s house that night. Peter was still trying to process this, trying to piece everything together. Of course it was Hawkeye...he had even heard the name Clint when he had been at Wanda’s one night! How had he not realized sooner? 

He continued to sit on the rooftop and thought about everything he knew about the Battle of Sokovia, deciding to try and see what he could find online about the red magic everyone had been talking about. 

_‘Mysterious Red Magic Seen in Sokovia Still Unexplained,”_ one headline read, followed by, _“Where has the Scarlet Witch gone?”_

Peter clicked the article, skimming it to try and get more information. Sadly, it didn’t yield much information that he was looking for. It was mainly about the fight with Ultron, with some of the Sokovian citizens claiming they saw some of the robots being pulled apart by red magic. He already knew all of this - it’s what people at school had been talking about. He was beginning to wonder why people believed it was something other than the Avengers technology when he got to the end. 

Near the end of the article, there was an interview with someone who had been caught in the midst of the chaos. 

_“I had been in the street, I thought it was the end,”_ the person had said, _“But this girl...she came up and blocked anything from being able to hit us and told us to run. There was some sort of...red forcefield she had brought up. I’d seen her around the city before, but never paid her much mind. With the war, there’s so many homeless teenagers wandering the streets...I didn’t think she was anything but that. Now I wish I would have ever asked her name. She just...summoned this red mist. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”_

Peter looked for a picture to accompany this, or even a description of the girl the person had been talking about, but there was nothing. A few other articles mentioned something similar - a young girl who was able to control this red mist type thing. Nobody described her appearance, though, and there was no documentation of who she was. The most anybody said was that they had seen her around before, one person mentioning they had seen her with who they presumed to be her brother. 

Didn’t Wanda say she had a brother? A brother who died in battle…

But why would she be in Queens now? Why would she be enrolled at Midtown if she really was working for the Avengers? While he was really starting to believe that there was a chance Wanda could be the Scarlet Witch, there still seemed to be some things that didn’t add up. 

Should he ask her? What if she just lied again...but what if she wasn’t lying to begin with? Peter really did like Wanda, and was hoping that whatever was going on wasn’t all part of something the Avengers had sent her to do. What if that was it? 

That’s when it hit him. Maybe Wanda really was working for the Avengers, and they knew he was Spider-Man. They sent her in to make sure he wasn’t a threat of some kind, perhaps. That’s why she agreed to hang out with him, to join AcaDec, to come to his apartment, to get dinner with May...it was all some sort of setup. They brought in Hawkeye when they found out about the date...that had to be it. Was he going to get in some sort of trouble? Was May safe? 

...and what about the other people he had seen in Wanda’s house? They weren’t Avengers, and no other teenagers had ever been documented being associated with the heroes. A family friends’ daughter, Wanda had said. So...an Avengers child? Did any of them even have children? Wait...hadn’t he heard the name Yelena a few days ago as well? Who was that? 

Eventually, Peter left the rooftop and decided to go back to the apartment before May could notice he had been gone for so long. When he got to his room, he looked at his laptop and it hit him. If he knew her name, maybe with a bit of searching, he could find some record of her somewhere. Assuming, after all, that Wanda Maximoff was her real name to begin with. 

He grabbed the computer and sat on his bed, pulling up google and typed in “Wanda Maximoff”, not getting any results he had wanted to see. 

“Hmm…” he wondered aloud, “I need some key words…” Wanda Maximoff Sokovia? Okay, with that all that came up was the Battle of Sokovia, all the reports that had been done on it. Nothing about anyone named Wanda. 

“I could call Ned to help,” Peter considered this for a second, but shook his head, “No, best keep it to myself just in case I’m wrong. Okay...if I was this really cool billionaire, or working for some secret agency, I would probably not have any files easily accessible that I didn’t want people finding. Google is going to be no help. That would be like trying to find the Black Widow’s entire history in a google-” he stopped mid-sentence, having a moment of realization. Of course...it hadn’t been that long ago that the agency S.H.I.E.L.D. had fallen, and that was when people had found out who Natasha Romanoff really was, because she had leaked all these files…

Would Wanda be in those files somewhere? Surely someone would’ve checked those by now if they were trying to find out who the Scarlet Witch was. Oh well, worth a shot anyways, wasn’t it? 

That great idea lasted all of about ten minutes, before Peter inevitably realized that most of the documents would be well before Sokovia even happened. The chances of finding anything about her was probably slim to none. They probably hadn’t known about her, right? 

He started plugging just ‘Maximoff’ into a search bar on different documents, getting to the point he didn’t even check what documents he was looking at. Right before he was about to give up for the night and try to get at least a few hours of sleep before school the next day, the search bar indicated that there was a match for ‘Maximoff’ in the document he was about to close. 

Suddenly, Peter was wide awake again as he hit the button to go to the first place the word was mentioned. It was highlighted various times throughout whatever it was he was looking at. 

_Subject: Maximoff, W. Status: Alive._

_Results: Inconclusive. Further testing to be done_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you probably know this story better than I do at this point. I had to keep going back to my masterdoc for the story to make sure I wasn't contradicting myself, and kept finding things I forgot about- so if I accidentally contradicted myself anywhere in this chapter, I apologize I just couldn't bring myself to reread the entire story.   
> Sorry if this chapter is a mess, lol. I'm probably going to try to wrap this story up soon because apparently I can't keep myself motivated for it.   
> As always, let me know what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think! Feel free to reach out to me on twitter @oceanicflights


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